Sabredancing with the Dead
by SabreKai
Summary: Fellow travels across the Pacific to visit an old girlfriend teaching at Fujimi High. They just get settled in to chat in the teachers' lounge when all hell breaks loose. Two OCs, Probably meet up with the gang later in the story.
1. Chapter 1

Chapter 1

Tokonosu City, Japan

0815 April 15, 20xx

The inflatable nudged gently against the dock at the Tokonosu Yacht Club, and the one man aboard reached out with a line and made fast to the dock. He then turned to the stern and took a chain and padlock from the floor plates, and used them to secure the outboard motor to a cleat on the dock. With that completed he stepped onto the dock and made his way to the Club building. He carried with him a small bag with a fresh change of clothes and his personal hygiene gear. As he went up the ramp to the shore he stopped for a moment and looked back at the boat he'd just arrived in.

Sabre Dance was a 38 foot long steel cutter, of 70's vintage. She rode easily at her mooring, and her owner smiled a bit as he looked upon her. After working on her for more years than he'd care to think about, he and she finally cut the lines to shore and headed out into the great wide world. It'd have been a blast so far, sailing from the Great Lakes in Canada, to England, then the North Sea and Baltic stopping at various places along the way. Once he reached St Petersburg, and had his fill of the sights, he'd turned around and headed back to the North Sea. From there he'd sailed along the French coast, Spain, and Portugal, finally tying up in Gibraltar.

It was there that he pondered his next move. He had two choices. He could either turn east and head into the Mediterranean, or he could turn west until he caught the North East Trade winds to the Caribbean. After due consideration (aided by a bottle of rum) and a look at his bank account, he'd decided to cross the Atlantic again and head for the Windward Islands. There weren't too many places a poor man could live cheap in the Med. So, choice made he'd replenished his stores of food, water and fuel, picked up a dozen new paperbacks and headed out to cross the ocean again. The passage was fairly smooth sailing, and he made landfall at Barbados and worked his way up the Windward Islands chain and on to Panama. That had taken a couple of years worth of sailing and just enjoying life as he moved from place to place.

He'd blown another year in crossing the Pacific, stopping at all the WWII places he'd read about as a kid. In due course he made his way to Japan, clearing in at Okinawa. Of course every time he left an area he had to register again with the Japanese Coast Guard, Immigration and/or the local Police. He also had firearms aboard, which was a sticky point with most countries. Some took them into custody and returned them on departure, others confiscated them and never returned them. At least the Japanese were decent about it, and they were now under seal in the compartment he'd built in for that purpose. As long as he reported them to the authorities he wouldn't have a problem anywhere in Japan.

Navigating in Japanese waters could be tricky and the approach to Tokonosu Port was no different. Then all that paperwork had pretty much blown yesterday once he'd arrived, and he'd conked out early for a good nights' sleep. He was pretty beat, so he was asleep before the sun set and slept like a log, lulled by the gentle rocking of SD. He was up by dawn, and had a cup of coffee, and a couple of biscuits. Later today, he was planning on visiting with an old girlfriend who'd taken a job teaching English at a well regarded school high up on one of the hills overlooking the city.

He and Katherine (Kat) had met in grade 9, ignored each other for the first two years, decided they sort of did like each other in 3rd year, and were thicker than thieves for the last year of High school after finally getting it together over the summer vacation. However, going to colleges on pretty near the opposite sides of the country, put paid to the relationship, but they had stayed in touch over the years.

Kat had written him of her new job in Tokonosu, and added that if he ever made it to Japan to look her up. Thus, an early morning shave, shower and decent shore going cloths saw him at the curb waiting on a taxi after the club had called one for him. It arrived in short order, and he gave the driver the address. As they made their way through the city the scenery changed from wharves, ships of various types, including a Japanese destroyer, shore side warehouses and assorted offices and bars, to higher office towers, the main shopping through fare coming alive as people started their day, a Hospital, police stations, and apartment buildings of various shapes and sizes, separated by clusters of private home, with neatly trimmed gardens. Gradually they climbed up over the city into the burbs.

As they drove up into the hills, he looked out the window and could see the general shape of the city, two halves, bisected by a river, with several bridges across it. Far off shore he could just make up Tokonosu International Airport, a man made island. As he watched, the first outgoing flights took wing and headed out over the Pacific, before turning to all points of the compass as they set course to destinations far and wide. In one of his early jobs, he'd been responsible for dispatching aircraft all over Canada, and while that was many years and several careers ago, he still got a thrill out of anything to do with aviation and flying.

It only took half an hour to get up the hill to Fujimi High School where Kat worked. Wolf climbed out after thanking the driver and paying him, then turned towards the high gate surrounding the school compound. There was a buzzer and microphone on one of the pillars, so he announced himself and a few seconds later he heard the click as the electric lock disengaged. Stepping through the gate, and closing it behind him, he walked up towards the front doors of the school. He made his way to the office, and introduced himself, and told them he was here to see Kat. One of the secretaries smiled at him, bowed and led him to the Guest lounge which was on the second floor. It had a nice view of the courtyard and out over the city.

"Katherine will be free in about 10 minutes and has two periods off. I sent a messenger to her class, so she will meet you shortly. Please help yourself to refreshments", she said as she bowed again and turned back towards the office. He turned towards the counter and fixed himself a coffee and a pastry, and went to sit down to wait for Kat to appear. A few minutes later, he heard her exclaim, "Wolf, damn it's good to see you again!" as she walked in the door, and over to grab him in a hug.

Kat hadn't changed much in the last 20 years. A tall willowy brunette, shoulder length hair, she stood about 5'8. She was dressed in a black skirt with a white blouse, and a nicely cut jacket, also black. No high heels, she'd always been that way, and was wearing dress shoes, with no heels. Even after being apart for more than 20 years, she still took his breath away when she broke into that dazzling smile of hers. He hugged her back, and was somewhat surprised when she planted one on his lips.

"Come on, let's have something to drink and catch up a bit. I've got two periods off, so we have a couple of hours before I have to get back to it and I'll take you for a nickel tour before I head back to class." She said, while pouring some tea for herself. The two turned to a couch that faced the windows, and settled in. "So when did you get in, and when do you have to leave?"

Wolf took a sip of his coffee, and started talking.

"I just got into Tokonosu yesterday. Took me most of the day to sort out the paperwork with the local customs and police office, and then I just crashed. Getting into this place is a bit of a trial. Lots of traffic in and out, and it was a bit hard finding my mooring so I was beat. But here I am. 4 S's, and best bib n tucker. I've been looking forward to seeing you again for a long time now. I've missed ya Kat. The occasional letters just didn't cut it, so when I got your email when I hit Manila, and you said to come visit, I set sail for Japan a few days later."

"So you finally did get Sabre Dance finished huh? I wasn't sure if you were just jet setting around or if you were sailing. I never even thought to ask. You sure have done a bit of travelling in the last couple of years. I envy you.

"Yeah, it just didn't make sense to play the game anymore. The whole 9-5 rigmarole, the constant bullshit and backstabbing by assholes tryin' to get ahead, bosses who couldn't find their own asses with both hands, and busting my butt to get the job done while half my coworkers screamed discrimination if someone asked them to do the same. I had almost 20 years in with that last place, and they finally downsized me out of a job. So I got a package, and took a month off to think. I even got started on the job hunt, put out resumes, playin' the goddamn game again."

"Then I got a phone call from Neil. You remember him right? Best buddy all through school and later?

"Yes I remember him and Annette, we had some pretty good times together." said Kat as she smiled at the recollection.

"Well, he told me to sit down and then told me he was dyin' from cancer."

"Oh that sucks. Sorry Wolf."

I hopped a plane to Edmonton, and spent a few days with him. He was still in good shape then, and we had a good time. One night we were out on the patio drinking and he started talking about the game. Said he'd spent his entire working life getting ahead, costing him his wife, ended up with a great job, in charge of million dollar projects, and then he looked at me and asked me what had he gained? Hadn't seem much of the world, hadn't travelled worth a damn, and was gonna die with lots of money and not much else. Finally asked me why the fuck do we bother? What for? He who dies with the most toys still dies, and hadn't really lived. Or seen a damn thing. He decided right then to pack up his home, and head out into the world. Planned on dying under a palm tree with a bottle of Jack Daniels and watching the sun go down."

I got to thinking about that when I got home. SD was in the water by then, pretty much fixed up, so I closed the apartment, sold off a bunch of crap I'd spent money on and never used, shit canned the rest, and moved aboard. I spent that winter in the water, at the yacht club, and headed down the St Lawrence the next spring as soon as the river was open to traffic." He chuckled. "Yeah, sailed off into the sunset and abject poverty, more or less. But it's been worth it. I got an email from Neil about a year or so ago, when he said his final goodbye. He was sitting on a beach in Phuket, Thailand, with a pretty little local girl to hold his hand."

He took another sip of his coffee, then asked her what she'd been doing for the last while. She started telling him about the school, her job, and some of the students she had.

"I've been here for about 8 months now, and have a small apartment down in the core. I could have had one closer to the school but I decided that being in town put me closer to the big library, a couple of really good concert venues, and... really great shopping." Kat said with a grin.

"The pay here is pretty good, and I'm able to live well, and bank a good bit. I can't complain, I'm really enjoying teaching English to the students, especially the young ones. Most of the older students speak English very well, and I've made friends with some of their families, so I always have something to do. "

'You want another coffee Wolf?" she asked as she rose from the couch to make another one for herself.

As she put the makings in the machine, they both heard a shrill scream come through the open window.


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2

Fujimi High School

0947 April 16, 20xx

Day 1

Kat and Wolf both jumped up and ran to the window. The screaming continued and looking down into the court yard, they saw a man at the gate, pushing his arms through the gate while three people inside knelt by the body of a fourth man down on the ground, blood pooling around him. It was a good distance away but it appeared that the downed man's struggles became less, and finally he stopped moving entirely. From the motions of the other three, it looked like the guy had either become unconscious or died.

After a minute or so, the body began moving again, and the woman teacher appeared to be checking him out when he reached up and grabbed her by the blouse, pulled her down and sank his teeth into her neck. She screamed, fell over backwards and thrashed about for a minute, then she too stopped moving. The guy who bit her managed to get to his feet and made for the other two teachers who took one look and bolted. The dead guy started following them into the school in a slow shuffling gait.

As he moved away towards the school, the downed woman teacher started to move after a minute or so, and got to her feet and followed the other shambling figure after the two who had run away.

Kat looked at Wolf in shock, "What the hell is that? Look at those two coming towards the building. They are both covered in blood and shuffling like they are half asleep."

"Damned if I know, but the office should be on the phone to the cops by now."

"It looks like the guy outside the gate has moved on. I don't see him anymore." Kat said as she kept looking down at the two shuffling 'things'. As she watched they disappeared below her line of sight, heading for the main entrance.

A couple of minutes later the PA system came on and a man started to make an announcement in Japanese. Kat started to translate until the man started shouting, there was the sound things crashing to the floor and then the announcement broke off in a scream of agony. As she turned to Wolf with a shocked look, faint screams started to percolate through the walls of the guest lounge. Wolf told her to stay put, and he headed to the door. The screaming was getting louder, and he opened the door a crack to see what was going on. Not seeing anything down that end of the hall, he opened the door some more, and stuck his head round to see in the other direction.

The hall was filling up with running students, all headed in his direction. As they streamed past, a couple of them caroomed into the door and knocked him back into the lounge. He got back into position and shoved the door open again. This time he was lucky. Most of the stampede was past him and he looked again. He still heard the screams, much closer now, and saw what looked like several students being attacked by teachers and other students. He watched one girl try to back away from a teacher and fell to the ground when he lunged at her. He watched as the girl screamed in agony as the teacher bit into her arm and tore loose a chunk of bleeding flesh. What the fuck was going on? The kid screamed a couple more times and then went slack and silent. The thing that had been a teacher sat back on its haunches, and continued to munch on his mouthful of flesh, before bending forward and tearing off part of her face. A moment later the girl "woke up" and got to her feet, shuffling about aimlessly amid the bodies and munching things. Another scream behind him seemed to draw her down the hall in his direction. He quietly backed up and watched as she passed. Dead eyes, blood all over her cloths, shuffling along. _What the fuck_?

Very quietly he backed away from the door, not wanting to risk any noise from closing it. Thankfully the door opened outwards, and the next critter that staggered into it, slammed it shut and all it could do was bang on the door. He moved back to Kats' side and whispered to her, telling her what he'd seen.

Face white, she never said a word, grabbed his arm and pulled him back towards the windows and pointed. Down below, chaos reigned. Students were running all over, chased and dragged down by other blood covered kids and adults. Some of them tried to fight back, throwing books or whatever came to hand, but all ended up being dragged down screaming. As they watched the chaos below, some blurred shape flashed by the window and ended on the ground with a thud. They looked down to see a husky blonde haired man, skull crushed and bleeding out on the pavement. The court yard had become a slaughter house as the number of screaming, running people decreased with ever increasing speed. For ever one that was bitten, a few moments later that same person was now part of the attacking horde. It didn't take long and the courtyard was empty of living souls. The reanimated creatures slowly milled about, bumping into each other and walls, benches and any other object in their path. It seemed that with no more screams to draw them, they had no reason to do anything other than to shuffle about.

Wolf looked out past the fence around the school and there was no difference. The few people he could see were blood covered, ambling… Zombies. He couldn't see one single person who appeared to still be human. He glanced at his watch. About half an hour, maybe a bit more since they first saw the guy trying to push through the gate. He turned toward Kat and put his finger to his lips, then motioned her to follow him to the farthest corner of the room.

When they both were in the corner Wolf started to whisper to her.

"Whatever this is, it spreads rapidly by bites. I timed it out at about 1 minute, 30 seconds from the time the victim stops moving until they come alive again and start attacking."

Kat was pretty rattled. She whispered back "Great. We're living Dawn of the Dead. So what do we do? There are masses of them. You saw how they ganged up on anyone they found. How are we gonna get out of here? We can't fight them, we have no weapons. Maybe we can hide here til the police and whatever respond. They had to have called the cops, don't you think?"

"Look out the window farther out, over the city. You see the smoke rising in spots? I suspect we can't here the sirens screaming down there because they are too far away and we're behind a set of double windows. What ever this shit is, it's not just here, it looks like it's all over the city. I think we're on our own. It's up to us to get ourselves out of here."

Kat started to tremble, and Wolf wrapped his arms around her, pulling her tight to him. "We're gonna be alright Kat, we just have to stay calm, keep our wits about us and do everything we can to make sure we keep clear of those critters."

She continued to shake, a death grip on him, and he continued whispering. "Come on Kat, where's the tough broad I used know? Nothing ever fazed you. Shit, remember that accident we had to clean up while I was driving tow truck that summer to make some money for college? You were the one who grabbed the fire extinguisher and dove into a 15 car pile up and pulled that kid out of the wreck just before it burned. That wasn't me who did that, it was you. Come on, get your shit together and let's figure this out. We are smart, and they are dead. All we gotta do is figure out their weak points and use them."

They stood wrapped around each other for several minutes until the shakes had stopped. When she let go of him, she kissed him for the second time.

"Let's see what we can find in here that's useful."

As she turned to explore the room, Wolf grasped her arm.

"Shoes. Take em off. We can't make any noise that might attract them."

With that he let her go and reached down to pull of his own shoes. She did the same, and put them on a table then started to explore. First thing she did was to quietly open up the cabinets at the counter. As she expected there were quantities of drinks and snacks and she started pulling out some of everything. Bottled water they had lots of. Poky, the every present chocolate dipped cookie sticks, tins of Bisuko, and other snack foods were also on hand. Thank god they weren't in the faculty room. There was next to no food in there, only some vending machines.

Wolf in the mean time was looking round for something to use as a weapon. The pickings were looking pretty slim. Since the room was used to entertain guests such as parents or high education officials it was pretty empty of the usual clutter you would expect in a room being used. Food and drinks, yes. Magazines, a trophy case, the school crest on a wall mount. Some furniture, tables with low legs, (he'd forgotten that most Japanese sat on the floor.) One useful thing he did find was a map of the school buildings, all in Japanese of course. Otherwise? They were shit out of luck for anything that might be useful as a weapon.

He wandered back over to Kat, who was packing the food into doubled up garbage bags. He rummaged quietly through the cutlery, and there wasn't anything useful there. He supposed he could stab a critter in the eye with a chopstick but he'd no intention of getting that close to one. After the one had slammed the door shut, and bumped into it for a while, they hadn't heard anything other than a muffled moan occasionally. He went over to the door and listened for a moment, then very quietly opened the door (thank god for well oiled hinges) and peeked out. The nearest critter was a good 30 feet away, slowly shuffling away towards the larger mass down by the stair case. He closed the door again.

As he walked by the trophy case again, an idea hit him and he waved Kat over.

"Can you read these and tell me what they are for? Which sports?" he asked.

"Sure, but why?"

"I want to know if they teach any of the fighting arts here. We may find some weapons somewhere. There is absolutely jack in this room."

"Of course they do. Staff, pike, sword and archery." She replied.

"Ok, there may be some hope for us yet. Where do they teach these? Where are we on this thing anyway?" as he handed her the map.

She took the map, and started pointing out the various rooms used, and finally pointed to the guest lounge.

"OK, now we have to get there. But before we go out that door, I want to do some observing. What do the critters react to? What draws them? Time to do some experimenting. But first I'm going to secure that door better. I doubt they can figure out how to turn a door knob but lets not take any chances."

"So we sit here for a while?" She shrugged. "I guess that is as good an approach as any. So what do we do?"

"I want to play with the critters out in the courtyard. As long as we don't make any noise up here I doubt they will be drawn. First things first, I need ammo. Some of those water bottles ought to do."

He walked over to the counter and noticed some smaller beverage containers, yogurt or something from the picture. He picked up a half dozen and then went to the window. He examined it, determined how it opened and then noticed the entire panel could be unlatched and removed. Bonus!

Very quietly pulling the panel down, he put it aside and had a good look out the window. The critters were all still milling around. He watched as they ran into walls, each other, benches, trees, and all the rest of the things in the court yard. Then he saw something even more interesting as he watched a couple that were up on a sort of terrace slowly shuffle to the steps leading down. One by one they both walked up to the first step, took one more step and went down face first. One got up again, its face a mashed pulp. The other one lay still and didn't move again. By now he was certain. They couldn't see.

He reached down on the floor and picked up one of the yogurt cans. Seeing a critter fairly close by facing away from him he pitched the can. It missed and went skittering off a dozen feet or so. He noticed the dead that were near by turned towards the slight noise, but then after a while went back to aimless shuffling when they couldn't find the source and it didn't repeat. Kat fired one into a group of them. It bounced of ones' head, and fell to the ground. No reaction. The noise of it falling was washed out by the shuffling and moaning. There was no reaction to being hit on the gourd with a bottle.

Wolf walked over to the nearest table and picked up a vase. He turned back to the window and pitched it down along the face of the building. The shattering sound caught the attention of a fair number of them and they all turned towards the sound and shuffled towards it. Some actually walked into the wall. He and Kat pitched a dozen or more bottles and vases, all with the same reactions. Hit one and it didn't feel a thing. Make a noise and they were drawn. They couldn't see anything, which little detail was reinforced when Wolf picked up a table and dropped it to the ground. The shattering noise was a lot louder than any of the other tries, and it drew more critters from farther away.

Wolf turned away from the window. He went and grabbed a bottle of water and sat down. Kat came over and sat beside him, leaning into him and putting her head on his shoulder. Neither one spoke. Both were thinking.

"I just had an idea." He whispered.

"So did I... You first."

We drain a bunch of cans, tie them on a line and jiggle them out the window. Rub them against the wall. We can use it as a call, and get a lot of them over here under the window."

"Ok, and then what?" she asked.

"Simple. We set fire to them, or try to. We can drop burning papers and cloth from the seats down on them. If we're lucky they won't feel it, or notice it. Hopefully it will spread among them. Most clothing these days is synthetic and burns like hell."

Kat thought about it for a moment. "Hmmm. I noticed a jug of furniture polish under the counter. Maybe it's flammable. If it is, pour that on them first then toss the match... OK so we need some line. Which we don't have."

"Oh, but we do Kat, we do" Wolf turned to her with a grin. "I'll start cutting the cords on the blinds while you go empty some cans."

As Kat quietly emptied some cans into the sink, Wolf reached into his bag and pulled out a Swiss Army knife, one of those multi tool kinds that were popular long before Multi Tools became the stainless steel deals so popular today. He'd had his since he first started to sail. The blade, sharp as ever, made short work of the thin synthetic cords. He tied a few together until he had about 20 feet of line, and put the rest into his bag. By that time Kat had drained a dozen or so cans, and found a metal water pitcher as well. He punched holes into the cans, and strung then onto the line, then tied the pitcher to the bottom. Kat picked up the bottle of polish, which did have the international flammable symbol on it. Wolf handed her a box of matches and they went to the window.

He lowered the line down the outside of the building until it was just at ground level, then started jerking it up and down and swinging it from side to side against the building. It worked like a charm. Critters from as far away as a couple of hundred feet started moving towards the noise. After about 10 minutes of this they figured it was time to light the barbeque. He poured the polish into a glass, and flung it out and over the crowd. He continued until the bottle was empty, then turned and winked at Kat. "Light em up!"

Kat set a bundle of papers alight and tossed them out the window. The bundle fell onto a critter, then fell to the ground. She waited a minute to see if it would catch, and after a moment, smoke started to rise from that spot.

The critters did nothing about the flames, just kept on thumping into the wall, looking for the sound that had attracted them. In short order there was a very merry but quite smelly bonfire going down there.


	3. Chapter 3

Fujimi High School

1117 April 16, 20xx

Day 1

They had to close the window after a few minutes, as the stench was enough to make them gag. While they had watched, the critters burned, moaned and shuffled around. They didn't run, and the ones still coming came on until they were engulfed in the mass. They had to pull the line with the cans up as the flames got closer to the wall, as it would have burned through and Wolf figured they might need it again. He and Kat went back to the couch to try and come up with a plan to get them out of the building. Kat had her car in the lot, question was how to get to it.

"OK Kat, we've learned a few things about them. One, they are blind, and have no sense of touch or feel. They bounce off walls, and each other. A bottle to the head doesn't do anything to them. Two, sound draws them. If they hear no louder directional sounds, they mill about like drunks. They came when we jiggle the cans, and stopped coming after the cans had stopped making noise for a couple of minutes. Then they started milling around again. Three, they are slow and clumsy. I didn't see any of them moving faster than a shuffle. They kill by overwhelming their prey. I think they would be easy to outrun as long as you had a clear path."

"Yes, one and two been proven." She replied. "I'm not so sure about three."

"So we hold three in reserve. If for some reason it all goes pear shaped at least we can try. It's better than getting munched on. Now we have to figure out how to kill them individually. Obviously we can't set every one of them on fire. Besides, we're out of fuel." He said.

Kat though about it as she sipped a soft drink. "You saw that bunch that went ass over tea kettle down the steps? It looked to me that the ones who landed on their heads didn't get up again, while those that hit on their sides started moving again, and kept going. Some of them had busted arms or legs, those didn't move very well. I guess it's like that TV show The Walking Dead. Bash their heads in and they die for good. Anything else is a waste of time... Got any ideas on how to prove the theory? Without getting us munched on?"

"Hmmm, gonna need a club of some sort. Something fairly heavy."

Wolf looked around at the furniture. There wasn't much that looked like it would do, even the table legs were short little stubs. He checked the closet, No, the mops and what not were too thin, not enough mass to make a good club. He turned back to the couch.

As he walked behind it he ran his hand against the back rest. He turned back to look at it and then pulled out his knife and started to cut away the material. What he found inside was a solid wood frame, made of some hardwood. The back cross piece was a good inch and a half by three inches in section. He continued to pull the couch apart, and found that the arm rest frame was even better. Not to mention easier to take apart. He checked the fasteners, and found that his handy Swiss Army knife wasn't going to do it this time. But a couple of swift kicks to the side of the arm rest wrenched the screws from the wood and a couple of heaves finished the job. He repeated the process on the other one and so both he and Kat had a club of sorts.

"OK, guess it's time for me to go hang it out. You go over to the other side of the room, and stay absolutely quiet. If this turns to dog shit, stay back no matter what. I'm gonna open the door very quietly and see what's out there. If there's a bunch I'm gonna toss a can down towards the end of the hall. If there are only a few I'm gonna step out and see if I can kill one without drawing another one."

She hugged him, whispered "Good luck" and backed off into the far corner. He picked up a couple of cans and put them into his belt, hefted his club, then walked to the door. He put his ear to the door, and didn't hear anything nearby. Once he checked Kat's position he quietly turned the knob, and ever so slowly pushed the door open. Again he thanked the nameless person who had oiled that door recently. He wondered in passing if that person was still alive somewhere here in the school.

Peeking through the crack between door and jamb he saw a couple of critters 90 feet away. Only one in the immediate vicinity. As the door slowly opened he could see farther around and then down towards the other end of the hall. One was shuffling towards that end and the hall was clear for the rest of the way to the far stairwell, a good 150-200 feet farther away. " _Looking good_ " he thought to himself as he slipped out into the hall.

His target was about 25 feet away, facing down hall away from him. Wolf slowly started advancing toward the thing, being as quiet as possible. Stocking feet on tile make it easy. As he closed to within a few feet he raised his club, and made the final steps. The critter still slowly shuffled along, and showed no sign of being aware of his presence.

" _Now!_ "

The club came down in a fast moving arc, and crashed into the back of the skull. Wolf watched as with an audible crunch, it created a depression at least an inch deep in the things' head and it went to its knees and then flopped face forward to the tile. Very quickly he backed off from the body as it had made a thud as it hit. He kept his eyes on the bunch at that end, then turned to look at the other end.

It looked like he'd done it. None of them turned towards him. He looked back down to the dead body, and realized he'd killed a student. He also took note of the back pack the kid was wearing. That would come in handy, so he very quietly pulled it loose from the body and then made his way back to the lounge. Once inside he gave Kat the thumbs up, and then turned back and carefully closed the door.

"I walked right up behind it. Not a single sign that it was aware of me at all, and it went down like a sack of spuds. It was wearing this backpack, figured we can use it to carry some of the supplies, easier than plastic bags." He told Kat.

"Ok, give it to me, I'll put some of the liquids in there. It will be easier to carry the dry stuff in a bag."

He handed her the backpack and she started unzipping the various compartments, and pulling out books and notebooks. As she looked at the notebooks, she slowly started to cry. She recognized the name. This had been one of her best students, a bright kid with manners, a wicked sense of humor and no small dreams for the future after he graduated. After a moment, she wiped her eyes, shook off the sadness and continued to repack the backpack.

While she was doing that, Wolf started tearing the couch cover into strips, and bundling them together. He took a longer strip and tied the bundles to it, then knotted the long strip into a loop, which he slung across his chest. Kat looked at him as he did so and raised her eyebrows, wondering what he was doing that for. He didn't say, Just cut a few more strips and took the second garbage bag of dry foods and wrapped them in a larger piece of cloth, and knotted another long strip to it, and put the bag on his back, the strip again running across his chest.

As prepared as he could be, he looked around one last time, and said "Kat, when we walk out of here, we have to be dead quiet. We gotta be like ghosts. And we absolutely have to control our fear or we are dead. We can't make a sound. We go out barefoot, and take it one step at a time. Keep your head on a swivel, and look front, back, sides constantly. We don't want to be surprised. Right now, they are all at either end of the hall, more of them towards that end." He pointed to the left end of the hall. "We go in the other direction after I clear them. I'm going first, you stay back a bit. It's only one floor down to the ground, and there is a ground floor exit at the bottom of the stairwell. I'm gonna toss a couple of cans between us and the stairwell, to draw them towards us. When they get closer I'll pitch a couple more towards the other end. If it works, the critters should shuffle past us and head down towards the other end. As they move away I'll pitch a couple more over their heads and farther down the hall. Got it?"

Kat was looking kinda pale, (so was he for that matter) but nodded yes.

"OK, time to go." With that he got up and moved to the door. Again he slowly opened it, and peeked through the crack. Clear. He opened the door a bit more and felt some resistance. Shit. Every so gently he pushed the door farther open. The critter on the other side turned and shuffled out towards the center of the hall. His observations were still proving correct, the thing couldn't feel the door pushing it. As it turned it slowly crossed the hall and bumped into the opposite wall where it kept trying to walk through it.

With the door open enough to look around the other side, Wolf checked the halls. The situation wasn't much changed, one or two had moved from the less crowded end of the hall and were bouncing their way along one wall. He pulled out a soft drink tin, and lobbed it halfway between himself and the critters, on the opposite side of the hall. Sure enough the two headed that way. The one across from him turned as well, heading for the sound. He stood to watch as they slowly shuffled into a group on the other side of the hall, some ways down. Then he tossed one directly opposite his position. The critters again turned towards the sound and kept moving. Wolf kept watching, taking occasional glances at either end of the hall. The third can went farther down towards the crowded end, and he stepped out away from the door when they had passed and moved a good 25 feet farther down the hall.

The hall was clear from the lounge to the stairwell and he advanced until he could see into the stairwell. There were about 10 or so critters milling around, and as he watched two of them managed to walk off the landing and tumbled down the stairs. The noise drew three more to the edge and over they went as well. Bonus. The rest of them were milling around and prevented from getting to the steps by the railing. He'd have to draw them back and then to the side, finally towards the steps.

He glanced back, and saw Kat standing in the hall by the lounge. She was keeping an eye on the other end of the hall. He gave her the thumbs up sign and turned to deal with the ones on the landing. He lobbed a can directly in line with the critters and himself. They turned and move towards him, and he quickly tossed another towards the stair head. Sure enough they turned and moved in that direction. He moved a bit closer so he could see around the doors that separated the landing from the hall, and bounced one off the wall, out past the beginning of the stairs. Again, they obliged him by shuffling forward, one, two, then 3 more until they had all gone over the edge to the sound of muffled thuds as they crumpled up on the landing below. The top landing was now clear.

He waved Kat forward and they stood on the landing looking down. The stairs went down about 10 steps to a smaller landing, then turned to the left and went down another 10 or so. A couple of the things had actually gone past the landing on their way down, or had crawled that far. There were still at least 7 or 8 of them piled up in a heap on the lower landing, some moving about, some obviously dead from the fall. Wolf walked up to the rail and leaned out as far as he could. The bottom of the steps appeared to be clear, so all they had to do was get past the pig pile on the landing.

He and Kat studied the pile for a few minutes, and it appeared that the critters had suffered various degrees of damage from the fall, and weren't moving too much.

"I think if we take our time we can bash them in the head one by one. You up for it, Kat?" he whispered.

"It would be nice to have a longer hunk of wood to bash them with, but yeah I think I can do this." She replied.

"OK, then, one step at a time. Very slow, watch where you put your feet and be ready to step back in an instant if they start to get frisky. They can grab you. So let' s not let that happen, right? I'll take the right side, and you can do the left." With that he turned to check the upper hall one more time, to make sure nothing was sneaking up on them. Still all clear.

He quietly walked over to the wall, and stepped down. One step, pause, a second, pause and so on until he was just above the pig pile. The bodies were mostly with their feet closest to him. Too far to reach with the short couch arm clubs. He thought about it for a moment, then knelt down on the lowest step, stretched as far as he could without over reaching, and poked one of the critters on the leg. Nothing. Again, harder this time. Again nothing.

Wolf stood up again, and contemplated the best way to whack them one at a time without risking another one twisting over at the sound of the club and possibly grabbing him. A couple of them were pinned under the upper ones, so he'd have to hit the upper ones first. This is where it was going to get tense. With that, he stepped down onto the landing. He move up towards the head of the nearest and swung the club down on the things' head, on the opposite side from where he was standing, and instantly stepped back to the wall. That one stopped moving. The one laying next to him turned a bit but stopped again when the sound didn't repeat itself.

He reached over and poked the second one. Again, no reaction, so he stepped up between the two and whacked that one, again on the opposite side. This time his club hit the floor and a couple of them became more agitated. Once again he stepped back and up the steps a bit. They both settled down again when the sound didn't repeat. Sweat dripped down his face as he waved Kat down, and motioned for her to hit the off side one while he whacked the near one. Very slowly they got themselves into position, and Wolf raised 3 fingers, and counted down. A couple of sickening crunches, and both of them were dead. Wolf turned to check the upper landing, it was still clear. He motioned Kat back to the steps, and had a good look at the rest of them. There were only 3 left, one on the bottom of a heap that was still moving, two live ones on top of him. Clearing the last three would take them to the next set of steps where two or 3 lay, pretty busted up.

What the hell he thought, and reached down to grab the leg of one of the live ones. He pulled it back enough to be able to reach its head with the club and that one was history. He stepped forward again, and in quick order bashed in the last two that were moving. The two thuds caused the bunch on the lower steps to come alive a bit, but he ignored them for the moment. Stepping carefully around the bunch he and Kat had bashed, he moved to the corner of the landing and looked down to the ground floor.

The gods must have been smiling on them as the doors to the lower hall were closed here, and while there were critters on the other side of them, there wasn't a single one in the ground floor lobby. All they had to do was off the 3 on the steps and they would be able to exit the building.

In short order the ones on the steps were dispatched, and he and Kat moved down to the lower floor and the doors. They took the time to strip another back pack from one of the corpses and then quietly walked to the doors and looked out. The nearest one was a good 100 feet away, closer to the main entrance.


	4. Chapter 4

Fujimi High School

1252 April 16, 20xx

Day 1

Wolf and Kat now found themselves in the stairwell/lobby at the west end of the Admin building. There were a number of critters shuffling around in the hall, thankfully kept out of the lobby by the usual steel and glass fire doors. So far none of them had come and bounced off the crash bars thereby opening the doors, and so the first thing Wolf did was take some of the strips he'd cut from the couch and lash the door handles on his side. Unless a horde of them tried to push through, they should be OK.

He and Kat looked out the windows of the doors leading outside. Being this was at the end of the building, there were not many of the things wandering round. Apparently not many kids had run across the walkways into the Admin building and down this way trying to escape. As he surveyed the area outside, he noticed a slight ramp leading into the wall on his right. Turning to look at the wall of the lobby, He was surprised to see that they had both missed the steel door in the wall which appeared to lead into that area.

"What's it say, Kat?" He asked, pointing to the sign on the grey door.

"Ummm, Heavy Equipment Department. All the technical shop areas are in this building on the back side."

"Sweet!"

Wolf walked over to the door and gave it a try. It opened easily. Motioning for Kat to follow him quietly, he moved down a short hall with lockers on either side, and into a well lit 4 bay garage and class room/work shop area. Parked in the bays he found half a dozen pieces of heavy construction equipment. Around the walls, benches loaded with engines and pieces in various stages of disassembly.

Watching every step, he worked his way round the perimeter of the garage and checked every corner and hiding space for more of the dead. After a complete circuit, he came back to Kat, and then walked over to the small steel door in the entrance hallway and locked it. Then he walked back down the row of large doors, making sure each one was locked.

Returning to the back of the shop, he grinned at Kat, grabbed her in a bear hug and whispered in her ear.

"Lady Katherine, we are going to hit the road in style. Armored transport. Screw the critters, we'll run them over."

Kat looked at him dubiously. "Lady Katherine? I haven't heard that since you and I were a couple. Anyway, you can drive one of these monsters?"

"Chivalry never dies, my Lady. And as for these things, it's been a hell of a long time but it's like riding a bike right? It'll all come back to me. Assuming one of them hasn't been pulled apart too much." He told her with some confidence. For the moment we are in a secure place, have access to some neat stuff for weapons, and once we get one of these moving we can head straight down to the harbour. One thing for sure, these buggers can't get to us out on the water. And once we are there we can see about getting hold of someone in authority and see what they are doing about this friggin' disaster."

"So what do you want me to do? I don't know anything about these machines." She asked him.

Well, for a start look around for some solvents or paint thinners, anything that is flammable again. And some bottles if you can find them. I want to make up some Molotov cocktails. In the mean time I'm gonna start at one end of the row and check out each of these beasts to see if one of them is in ready to run shape. I suspect one may be, question is which one. Driving down narrow streets in a scrapper won't be fun at all. Thankfully the Japanese all take safety so seriously, they all have cabs, so that's not a worry. I'm hoping the front end loader is good to go. I'm checking it first." He waved as he headed over towards the big Komatsu front end loader at the end of the line. Big mother, tires as tall as he was, with a ladder leading up to the cab which was a good 8 feet up.

Kat took off the back pack and put it on one of the benches. She started to methodically check the shop from one end to the other, and discovered all sorts of flammables. These she brought together on one bench. Bottles? Nowhere to be found. Then she had a bright idea and started to check out the various garbage cans and a couple of recyclable bins off in a corner. She found about a dozen, all small but still useful. She collected them as well and went off in search of a funnel. Again, easy to find.

Wolf had in the mean time climbed up into the cab of the Komatsu. The keys were in it, and he turned the electrical system on. Good levels on the batteries, fuel and coolant. Oil pressure he wouldn't be able to test until they fired up the diesel. So far so good. He climbed back down, and started doing a circle check, working his way around the big machine, checking hydraulics, pistons, tires, linkages etc. Everything appeared to be intact. But as he came round the front, he found one of the big hydraulic cylinders was off, and the hoses were capped. The bucket was also half off, supported on stands.

He walked round to the other side and found the same. Ok, this was a problem. Without them he wouldn't be able to lift the bucket. File that one away for later. He continued the circle check, and paid particular attention to the diesel. All the fuel system was in place and tight, he checked the radiator levels, and the hydraulic fluid, both quantity and the filters. Again, it all looked good. After an hour of intense scrutiny, he pronounced the Komatsu ready to go but for the cylinders.

Next in line was another Komatsu, this one a pretty large articulated dump truck. Again he spend the better part of an hour checking it out. This one was missing the lift cylinders to the box. No big deal, he wasn't planning on using that anyway. The big problem was that two of the rear tires were off. They were leaning against a rack off to one side. The truck rear end was up on jacks and there was a small lift crane handy so putting them back on should be a simple enough job. The nice thing about this puppy was that it has two seats in it, which the loader was lacking. Kat would have a hard ride in that one.

He moved on, and checked out a bulldozer, a huge forklift and another smaller front end loader. The last one was a smaller straight truck. All in various states of disassembly and wear. Looking back at the two Komatsu's he figured that they were new donations to the school, probably a tax write off as the meters on either one showed less than a 1000 hours. They had to be demo models. No matter.

He walked back to the benches, and started looking round for shop manuals for the two. He also kept an eye open for the missing cylinders. Of course getting them back on the vehicles would be a cast iron bitch but he did have a basic knowledge of hydraulics and figured if he could get them mounted he could get them working.

While he was digging into the file cabinets for manuals his stomach rumbled. Glancing at his watch he saw it was already after 5pm. He wandered back to where Kat was looking for better weapons.

"Hey, how about a break? We've been on the go since this morning. I'm thinking we have to stay overnight anyway, so let's eat and then see about getting that truck running."

"I thought you wanted to take the loader?" She asked.

"That was my first thought as it would have made clearing any road blocks a piece o cake. But I just found the cylinders they took off and they are all in pieces. So that's the end of that. I might be able to remove the bucket and leave it, but it wouldn't make much sense. The other thing is, it doesn't have a seat for a passenger, so you'd be bouncing round loose. That truck has two seats. And as far as I can tell the only thing wrong with it is that they took off the lift cylinders for the box and two tires. The tilt box we don't need, and the tires are a matter of grunt work. That I think I can fix."

"Ok, let's eat and then get to it." With that she turned to the bench and opened up the back pack she'd prepped before their foray into zombie land. Various drinks and snacks appeared and they dug in. While they ate, they talked about their chances of surviving. Wolf was pretty sure that as long as they kept their shit together, and paid attention to their surroundings, they'd be OK. His confidence helped Kat build hers. They sat down and leaned against the wall, ate and chatted for about half an hour.

"Sun will be down at 18:14 today, so we aren't leaving until morning."

"How the hell do you do that? How would you know what time the sun comes up or goes down?" Kat asked him with a quizzical look in her eyes.

"Simple. When you sail, knowing this is useful, so every day I check the local sunrise and sunset. As for using military time and being accurate to the minute, that came from spending years dispatching aircraft for half a dozen airlines. It's a habit I never lost. So I think with the 24hr clock. Wait 'til you try that and work time zones into it." He grinned back at her.

"Now I'm gonna start working on the truck. Pulling the bucket off that loader is more work than it's worth so the truck is the one we will be using. I'm going to get started on putting the tires back on. I'll holler if I need your help but I think I can manage it. If you want, you can look round for anything that you think might be useful between here and the harbour."He said as he got up off the floor and headed over to one of the big shop hoists.

Kat had worked her way through the lockers in the hall with a bolt cutter, and had found some shop coats, and some boots. Her shoes weren't going to be much use, so she rummaged around and found a pair of boots that fit more or less. They weren't perfect but would do for now. She'd wrapped some shop cloths around her feet, similar to what Russian soldiers did with their boots. She'd not known that trick, it was one more of Wolf's odd bits of knowledge. In hind sight it didn't surprise her, he'd been like that for as long as she'd know him. She'd often wondered what would have happened if their career choices had had a bit more flex in them. She had to admit, there had never been anyone in her life quite like Wolf.

As long as she'd known him, he'd surprised her with odd gems of wisdom, (which always seemed to turn out to be rather useful at the time), strange hobbies like the SCA, (where she picked up the name Lady Katherine and learned to use a sword) and a voracious appetite for reading. He'd read just about anything, and had often styled himself as a "Jack of all trades" with a decent bit of knowledge about a seemingly endless variety of skills. She remembered when Wolf had sent her the first details on the boat he'd bought, and how sad she'd felt when it turned out to be a lemon. He'd paid a surveyor to check the boat out and that guy turned out to be a consummate bullshit artist, writing an amazing document which in hind sight was total horseshit. So Wolf had spent $35,000 on a boat that should have gone for $5,000.

But instead of giving up, he'd started a rebuild that ended up taking 10 years, and about $75,000 dollars. He'd started a blog as a way of documenting the overhaul, and she'd followed it through all the cursing, swearing, bleeding and all the setbacks as he destroyed the entire interior, scrapped the engine, shaft, prop, fuel system, water system, all the electronics and the steering system. His writing style had been pretty humorous at times, as were the few videos he'd put in there. He'd developed a solid fan club, other people who were attempting the same thing, somewhere else in the world.

But here he was, master of his own sailing ship, and here to visit her after some 20 years. Right on time for the apocalypse. As she worked her way from one end of the shop, opening drawers, and cabinets, she watched him as he worked the hoist over to the first of the huge tires. In half an hour he'd gotten the tire up off the floor and dragged it over to the axle hub on the Komatsu. Using a pry bar to shift the base of the hoist he checked the bolt holes against the studs. They were off by a few degrees, so he'd have to rig the tire again. He dropped it onto a pile of wood blocks, and shifted the chain. Again he tried. Again it was off but not nearly as much. He marked the tire with a crayon and went through the cycle again. It took him an hour and a half to get the tire in position so he could shove it onto the studs and start bolting it down. He took a break, and then got to work on the second tire. This one took less time as he'd worked out a system where he could better determine the hoisting point on the tire. Finally the last tire was mounted. He glanced at his watch, it was past 9pm.

Every time he walked around the front end of the Komatsu, he kept looking at the slanted underside and the way the bumper was almost a meter above the ground. Have gotten the beast ready to run, he started looking around, an idea bubbling in the back of his mind. He found a set of oxyacetylene torches, and a welding machine. Rods he found in the tool chest up against the wall.

He went back to the Komatsu and crawled under the front end, and laid there for a few minutes investigating the frame and other structures. Finally his idea crystallized and he went over to the other truck, and torched a chunk of plate from its box. Dragging it over to the Komatsu and lifting it into position with the hoist, he welded it to the front bumper and then cut a few more pieces from the other box and built up a truss to support the plate. The beast now had a decent push bumper. He'd been worried about trying to clear a path with that high bumper. Problem solved.

Kat in the mean time had found very little of use to them in a zombie apocalypse. A few road flares from the vehicles, some gas cans, the solvents and bottles, and little else. About the best she'd found were a couple of long levers for use with 25mm sockets. They would make a better club than the couch arms. Having checked out everything, she started to read the manual for the Komatsu truck

Wolf found some wire in the racks, and used it to dismount the door switch for the overhead door the Komatsu was behind and move it over to the truck. He mounted the switch on the handrail of the boarding platform, and moved on to other things. Heading back to where Kat was at the bench, he started making Molotov cocktails. Filling the bottles ¾ full with solvents, he capped the bottles and put them in a cardboard box along with a bunch of shop rags for wicks. The box was put into the cab storage locker. The flares followed. Looking around, the clock on the wall said it was after midnight now, and he figured that he'd done everything they could do. There was nothing more to do than try and get some sleep in this shop which had no beds or couches, and nothing resembling a mattress. This was gonna be hard on the body and he'd be paying for it in the morning. So would Kat.

Washing his hands off with greaseless hand cleaner and a rag, he looked at Kat and said "Well, I've done everything I can to make sure the beast runs in the morning. I don't dare try to start it until morning, nor do I want to start up the compressor so I can use the impact gun on the lug nuts. That would be way too much noise. What say we make our selves comfortable up in the box and try n get some sleep?"

"In the box? Why the box?"

"Well, because we can climb in with a ladder and then pull the ladder up behind us. It's a good 6 feet or more from ground to the lip of the box. I doubt anything will get in here tonight but why take any chances? Unfortunately it's going to be rather uncomfortable. I don't see anything like bedding in here." he replied.

"How about some cardboard sheet? There are some large packing boxes in the store room, and we can break them down flat and at least have some insulation from the cold steel. There are some shop coats, we can use them as blankets of sorts." She said.

"Ahh, now I know why I keep you around. Good thinking." He grinned at her. "If we get cold we can always snuggle up and share warmth. I wouldn't mind having you in my arms again. It's been a while."

With that they packed up all the gear and food they still had, and put that into the cab of the truck. Then they made preparations for a cold night, and knocked down half a dozen boxes, so they had an inch or so of cardboard to lie on, tossed that and all the coats they could find into the box. Kat disappeared for a few moments in the washroom, and then climbed up into the box. Wolf hit the washroom next, and then went to the main power box, and cut the lights one by one until only a small light in the corridor leading to the stairwell was still on. Walking back to the ladder, he climbed into the box and then turned and hauled it up carefully. Kat had in the mean time taken the cardboard and laid it into the box where the bevelled side met the flat bottom, and was sitting there with her back to the side. Wolf thought about it for a minute and then suggested that they lay down along the long axis of the box, where the main part of the floor slanted down to the front and the smaller front section slanted down towards the rear. It sort of reminded him of a hammock and he figured that might be nicer to sleep on than the other way. So she got up again and they shifted the stuff over. She sat back down and leaned back.

"Much better. Come on. Get comfy. It's going to be a long night." He picked up some of the spare cardboard and rolled it into a bundle, then placed it as a pillow and sat down beside Kat. He put his arm around her shoulders and she naturally curled in towards him. A couple of coats over top of them and they were as set as they could be. All things considered, they were still alive, and had a plan and a destination. They talked long into the night, not really getting much sleep but dozing now and then. They talked of the old times, the fun they'd had, the passion they'd shared for various things, and the two of them went a long way towards rekindling their relationship.


	5. Chapter 5

Fujimi High School

0647 April 16, 20xx

Day 2

Wolf awoke with a start, not knowing where he was. It took him a moment to realize that he was in the back of the truck, Kat curled up against him and still sleeping. He glanced at his watch, and listened. There was no noise at all. He lay there for a few minutes, until the aches started to hit him. Very carefully he shifted Kats' head to the roll of cardboard and shop coats and quietly got up. Man, was he stiff and sore. Thankfully he had some Tylenol in his bag, so he pulled out a couple of T-3s. Then it dawned on him that the food and water was in the cab of the truck and he never had been able to swallow pills without a good slug of water. Shit.

He walked to the back end of the box and put the ladder over the side. A couple of minutes later he'd taken the pills and was heading to the washroom for a quick wash and a leak. Having done that he put his ear to the lobby door, and listened. No sound. He debated opening up the door to see what was out there but figured it wasn't worth the risk. Better to get Kat up, have something to eat and see about getting the truck started.

He walked back to the Komatsu, and climbed up the ladder. He knelt down beside Kat and gently shook her. As her eyes opened, she smiled at him, and slowly worked herself into a seated position. She groaned from the stiffness and he handed her a couple of Tylenol and a bottle of water.

"What time is it?" she asked as she sipped the water.

"Just after 7. The sun should be up now. I checked the lobby, no sound. I can't hear a damn thing other than the hum of the neon lights. If there is anything out there, its dead quiet. How you feeling?"

"I'm stiffer than hell. It's been a long time since I slept on anything other than a nice soft bed. But I expect it will go away once I get moving. How about you? You get any sleep?"

"Yeah, maybe a couple of hours." He moved behind her and told her to take off her jacket. That done he started to massage her neck and shoulders.

"Oh that feels good... Nice to see you still have the touch."

He continued, then had her stand up so he could work down her back. After 10 minutes of this she turned to him and said "Ok now it's your turn." He sat down and she returned the favour. Between that and the Tylenol they were in reasonable shape after an hour and some breakfast.

"So what's the game plan today? Besides running over the critters on our way to the harbour?" Kat said as she finished working his back muscles and he turned towards her.

"First we get the compressor going so I can finish the lug nuts. Then we start up the truck. Once she is warmed up, we open the door and head out. I don't really remember how I got here, I was too busy playing tourist. So you'll have to navigate for us. I want to get to the Tokonosu Yacht Club. That's where Sabre Dance is."

"Do you remember if you crossed a bridge over the river on your way here? Kat asked.

"No, we didn't. I remember roughly from my chart that the harbour is on this side of the river, and at the outskirts of town on the south side. The club looks to be a working stiffs' club, not fancy, and in the docks area. It's right across from the commercial fishing docks. I radioed that other one on the mouth of the river and their prices were astronomical compared to this one."

"Good. I know the one you are talking about. Mr Sakura has a boat there and he took several of us teachers out sailing last fall. I can get us there. No problem." She said with a sure look in her eyes.

"Got any last minute questions or ideas?" he asked

"No."

"OK then, let's get this show on the road then. Grab the operators manual and climb into the cab. I'll go fire up the compressor."

As she turned to the bench for the manual, he walked over to the main compressor and hit the switch. Immediately the big three phase motor started up and the compressor started to build up pressure. He'd already set up the hose, the impact wrench and the proper socket, so it was a matter of waiting for the compressor to reach maximum and go into maintenance mode. He turned towards the Komatsu, and climbed aboard. He turned the key and the electrical system came to life. He then pushed the starter button and was rewarded with the chugging sound of a big diesel coming to life. Once she fired he let her warm up, watching the gauges. Temperatures and pressures came up to spec quickly, and he left the wheel to go back down and do up the nuts. The compressor had by this time reached max pressure, and it was less than 5 minutes work to get them all snug. He dropped the wrench, and walked over to the bay door. He could now hear moans and thumps as the critters came at the door and ran into it. He pulled the locking bars away from the rails and the door was now ready to open.

Back in the cab he did a final check on the gauges, and was satisfied. He turned to Kat, and told her to open the bay door. She scooted out onto the boarding platform, hit the jury rigged switch and scooted back into the cab, locking the door as she went.

The Komatsu was parked nose into the bay, so the door was behind them. The two of them watched in the rear view mirrors as the bay door slowly rose, and they could see a couple of dozen pairs of feet, then legs, torsos and finally heads. The wave broke and the critters flooded into the garage. It was do or die time.

Wolf dumped the parking brake and shifted the transmission to R1. The rear view camera came on and he saw the critters flowing to either side as they headed towards the engine noise. Letting off the brake, he slowly started backwards out of the bay. A couple of critters were knocked to the ground and disappeared beneath the lower edge of the rear camera's screen. As the front of the truck started to back away, the critters gathered round it turned to follow. Kat kept an eye on the boarding steps but so far not one had shown any sign of recognizing it as a way up. They didn't seem to be aware of anything other than the roar of the diesel, once again proving they were only interested in sound.

He backed up a good 75 feet out past the bay door. The critters piled up round the front of the truck. Reaching for the gear shift he moved it to D1. Cranking the wheel hard over, the body of the truck twisted on itself, and he let the brakes go again. The truck started forward, driving into the crowd. Those to the side were swept off, those to the front ended up going down and under. He was pretty sure they had crushed some but the big truck didn't seem to even shudder. At something like 56 thousand pounds empty weight, the bodies would have been squashed to paste. He was glad he didn't have to see them.

Gradually he worked his way up to D5. The truck rolled on at about 25 miles an hour, passing the end of the building and then turning to the parking lot. All around them critters turned to the sound and started shuffling towards the moving earth mover.

Wolf turned to Kat. "Anything you want from your car?"

"No, we can leave it." She said as she fiddled with the radio. There was nothing coherent on any frequency, just broken bits in Japanese that she couldn't make out. She turned the radio off.

"Head out the gate and follow the road around until we hit the first intersection."

"Aye Aye, Bwana, out da gate, follow da road." He grinned at her. She elbowed him.

"Oww, what was that for?"

For being a wise ass." Kat was still very afraid, though it had gotten better now that they were moving.

"Sorry. I just figured some levity would go good now. We are in good shape, on the road and in a vehicle which will make this a piece o' cake. Don't worry Kat, in a couple hours we'll be safe aboard the boat and they can't touch us there."

The roads were empty. As they cleared the trees at the top of the hill that Fujimi High was perched on, the view opened up. They looked out of a city in deep trouble. Wolf counted at least 40 major fires before he gave up. More than a hundred columns of smoke rose all over the city, on both sides of the river. Here and there a car or cars sat abandoned on the side of the road. Some of them had their doors open, blood spattered around. Some of the buildings on either side of the road stood with shattered windows. They saw not a soul as they descended into the coastal area. Here and there they passed shambling critters, occasionally a bunch of them. All of them turned towards the sound of the diesel. None of them had a chance to chase them, but more than a few heard them coming and moved out into the street in front of them. The big Komatsu didn't even shimmy a bit. They disappeared under the nose, and that was it for them.

As they paralleled the river, they looked over at the bridge about a half mile ahead. Here they saw the first signs of life. The bridge was jammed with cars and other vehicles, gridlocked in place. They could see people trying to get across, fighting to get to the other side and possible safety, before the critters bringing up the rear could get at them. He saw what looked like JSDF troops standing on the roofs of the cars, spraying the mass of dead with rifle and machine gun fire. Every few seconds a flash of light and smoke as grenades were used. It also appeared that the barrier at the far end had mortars emplaced, as they seemed to be pounding the bridge approach in an effort to stem the flow. It didn't appear to be doing any good as the critters surged forward through the explosions, up the approach and onto the bridge itself. They engulfed the cars as they pushed ahead to get to the sound of dinner. Some troopers retreated in time, managing to jump from car to car and get out but most of them waited too long to run. They died trying to save the civvies.

"Jeezuz there must be thousands of them now." Wolf cursed.

"No, more like hundreds of thousands. The city had 2.4 million people living here. How many do you think got away? You saw how rapidly it spread at the school. I imagine the down town core was a complete slaughter. All those workers in tower offices, with only a few ways out? A few of those things get into a building and it would be a nonstop feeding frenzy. Nowhere to run, nowhere to hide."

Wolf checked his watch. They'd been on the road for half an hour now. He figured and Kat concurred that they'd hit the docks in another 45 minutes unless they had to make any major detours. So far they'd not hit any major blockages. What little they had run into was handled by the crudely welded bumper, and the cars pushed off to the side. But as they passed through the city core that might change.

Sure enough, as they came round the corner of an office tower, they found the road blocked pretty badly. Wolf pulled up to a stop. Within a minute, the first critter put in an appearance, shuffling out of the lobby of the building. Meanwhile he studied the pile of cars, trying to determine the best way to push through or whether to back up and go around another way. In a very short time, they had drawn a crowd of critters. Kat was starting to look panicky. He reached over and touched her arm. She turned to look at him.

"Steady Kat, nothing is gonna hurt you. I promise." Turning back to the job at hand, Wolf put the Komatsu back into D1 and slowly advanced towards the first car. Catching it on the corner of the bumper, it pivoted sideways and then he used the articulated steering to shove it off to one side. As it went, it in turn spun others around. Backing up he did the same to the one beside it, going in the opposite direction. He pushed it as far as he could, bashing it into the wall of the office tower.

As he did this, the critters kept trying to attack the truck, accomplishing nothing other than getting themselves crunched under the wheels or between the bumper and the cars that were slowly giving way. So far not a one of them had even tried to climb the ladders on either side, not seeing them and only following the roar of the diesel as it moved back and forth.

Eventually he managed to poke a hole through the mass of cars without any of them blowing up, (he'd smelled gas a few times from ruptured tanks) and they carried on down the road. Another half an hour, punching through one more pig pile of cars, and they could see the tsunami wall off in the distance. As with most coastal towns and cities in Japan, there was a 10-15 meter high wall between the harbour proper and the rest of the city. (A lot of them had been retrofitted with an additional 5 meters after the March 2011 tsunamis over flowed the 10 meter walls in a lot of places). It ran from the hills to the north and south, along the waterfront, set back a hundred meters or so. At the river it turned westward up both banks, until it petered out when the surrounding land reached a high enough level.

The wall was breached in several places by large steel gates which could be closed in the event of a tsunami. He expected them to be open but perhaps this area might be sealed off. It was a ready made fortress, and all they would have to do is get the gates closed, and then clear out the critters that were trapped. If they succeeded, they would have a land base, with facilities to handle a fair number of survivors. Anyway it was something to think about.

Ten minutes later, the Komatsu pushed a couple of cars away that had been abandoned in front of one of the gates. Backing up from that minor task, Wolf put it back into drive, and diesel snorting the beast entered the yacht club parking lot. As they moved towards the breakwater, he was pleased to see Sabre Dance waiting patiently. As they drove round the club area, looking for the gates that needed to be closed, he saw several boats at the moorings that had people in them, all waving wildly. The yard itself had perhaps 30-35 critters wandering around, all of them moving towards the big Komatsu.

After driving along the wall from one end of the yacht club compound to the other end of the public marina compound beside it, they found that there were 4 gates to be closed. Wolf checked the fuel gauge, they still had plenty. He headed back out through the nearest gate, and drove along the perimeter heading towards the river. The gate controls were located on both sides of the wall, and the wall also had numerous ladders on both sides to allow people to enter and exit if the gates were closed. They determined that the best way to secure the area would be to wipe out every ladder on the outside, and then close the gates one by one.

They headed to the south end of the wall, up onto the hill there then turned and drove close along the wall, scraping off every ladder he came across. They did this all the way to the river. When they got there, he looked up the length of concrete wall paralleling the river, and saw more of them, and so they drove half way back into the hills, back towards the school, letting the truck turn the ladders into scrap.

Turning back towards the harbour, he made a point of crunching any critters that had come to the road, attracted by the roar of the diesel. An hour later, they had closed the gates one by one, and returned to the yacht club. That last gate ground shut and they looked round for more critters. They saw about 20- 25 making their way slowly towards the truck, so once again they went into a circle. By 1300, the compound had been cleared of the walking dead.

Wolf moved the Komatsu over to the breakwater, and shut her down. He grinned at Kat.

"Told you we'd be OK."

"I know and you proved it too. Thank you for getting us out of there." With that she leaned over and kissed him. He put his arm around her and kissed her back. He reached up and stroked her cheek, grinned again, and said "Come on. Let's go see about lunch. I'm starving."


	6. Chapter 6

Sabre dancing with the Dead Ch 6

Tokonosu Yacht Club

13:20 April 16, 20xx

Day 2

With the compound cleared of critters, Wolf and Kat climbed down from the Komatsu, and looked around. They hadn't paid too much attention to what was happening around them during the clearing of the critters, other than to note several boats appeared to have people on them, all waving at the truck. Now that they had time, they walked along the breakwater from one end to the other scoping out the situation. There had to be at least 80 to a 100 people on various boats, all of them hollering at them. As they walked along they both waved at the people and Kat called out telling them that they would come over to see them once they got sorted out.

The two returned to the club and entered it, intending to pass through on the way to the dinghy ramp and check out the food supply situation along the way, but some shuffling noises caught their attention and so they quietly started looking around. They came upon a couple of critters who had not been able to find their way out of the building when drawn by the noise of the big diesel engine, and Wolf made short work of them by approaching them quietly and bashing their skulls in with the long wrench handles. That done, they headed to the dinghy ramp, skipping the grocery check, and Wolf was pleased to see Sabre Dances' tender still chained to the dock. He quickly unchained the dink and started up the motor. Kat passed down their limited gear and they motored quickly over to the yacht.

Wolf brought the dink along side, and tied her off. He stood up and climbed up onto the deck, then turned towards Kat and grabbed the gear, then helped her board. Having never been on board she took a moment to run her eyes from bow to stern and back again, turned to Wolf and said "Wolf, she's beautiful. The photos in your blog didn't do her justice at all."

"Yeah Kat, it took forever but it was worth the effort. I'm happy with what I ended up with." Wolf grinned at her, and then took her by the hand, leading her aft to the cockpit where he unlocked the hatch. He turned round and started down the steps into the cabin. Kat started down facing forwards, until he cautioned her to do it his way. The companionway steps were at a very steep angle and it was far too easy to fall that way. He told her that the only time he ever went down facing forward was if he jumped down using the forward edge of the hatch coaming as a hand grip. Even then he'd had a couple of collisions with the steel post at the edge of the galley counter. So she turned about and backed down the steps, incidentally giving Wolf a nice view of her butt.

" _Man I didn't realize how much I missed that view."_ He thought as he watched her come down into the cabin. He stepped farther forward and let her turn and look around. She was standing between the galley and the chart table, facing forward. He tossed the gear onto one of the pilot berths and started to give Kat the nickel tour.

"So here we are. Looking to your left you see the galley, with the stove and oven. Dishes and spices in the over head cupboard, cutlery in the drawer in the aft counter." As he spoke he pointed to the various items.

"We can have hot and cold water at the sink, but it takes a while to heat up the water. On your right, the chart table, electronics and electrical panel, and the cooler is underneath."

She glanced over at the complex of electrical equipment, and then down at the chart still spread on the table. She could see the winding route into Tokonosu harbor laid out, just as Wolf had followed it the day of his arrival.

"Now, stepping forward, the dinette is on you left, and it converts in to a sea going double bunk.

"What do you mean by a "sea going" double bunk?" She asked.

"Well, it's a lot narrower than a standard double. Your double on land is at least 54 inches wide. This one opens up to a bit over 48 inches and has a wall on one side and the dinette table to act as a lee cloth. If you use it at sea, it's harder to fall out of if the boat does the funky chicken. Normally when underway, the off watch crew uses the pilot berths and the single up forward of the main bulkhead. You will notice that outboard of the settee, there's a narrow raised berth, good for one person while under way. That is the pilot berth. That one is just about 26 inches wide at the shoulders and about 18 at the foot end. It also has a lee cloth so you don't end up on your head if she bounces around some." He explained. "On the right side, again, a single settee, and a pilot berth above it. There is a fair bit of stowage space behind the settee. "

"That's it for the main cabin area. If you want to squeak past me, you can look into the forward cabin, which has a fair large single berth on the left and the composting head on the right. There's a small hanging locker and other lockers all about. The chain for the anchor comes down through that hole in the deck and drops into the bin below. There's also a rope locker forward of the forward bulkhead but it is sealed off unless I need to do maintenance there."

Kat tried to squeeze by Wolf, and nearly fell over. As she threw her hand out to the side, she automatically grasped the rail running fore and aft on either side of the cabin, then she noticed the numerous other hand rails. She stood in awe. The photos she'd seen of the gutting were still buried in her memory and this was light years beyond those early day photos. Even the later ones as the interior was being built up again only showed the raw wood paneling, at which point Wolf had finally quit the job and headed out. It didn't show the neatly painted glossy white panels with varnished mahogany trim, charcoal grey cushions, hanging plants in a couple of corners, and pictures on the bulkheads. Somehow he'd even managed to save and put up the set of 3 oil paintings she remembered from his parent's place. They were jammed together very closely but still grabbed her attention as they had the first time she'd ever seen them.

"She turned out beautifully. That's all I can say. I remember the photos you posted of the original layout and the garish interior! The last photos I saw on the blog showed the interior starting to come together but this is elegant." She said.

"Thanks Kat, that means a lot to me. I'm glad you like it. Now let's grab some lunch and we can figure out what the hell we're going to do next. I expect we should go visit the neighbours too and see what they have to say. You need to get into some casual clothes. Head into the forward cabin and rummage around in the locker at the foot of the bunk. There are some shirts, shorts and what not in there. They should do you until we can organize something better. While you do that, I'm going to break out some food and mix us a couple of stiff drinks. I think we could both use it. How about some soup and sandwiches? I picked up some fresh food before I left Yamashiro a couple of days ago."

"That sounds great. Need a hand?" Kat said.

"No, I've got it all under control. Go see if you can find some clothes. IF you want to have a bit of a wash, you can, using the galley sink, or we can hit the club shower rooms later. I'll go up on deck if you want to use the sink."

"Thank you kind Sir, but I think a proper shower would be heaven. Let me find some clothes, eat and then we can go out and meet the neighbours."

With that she disappeared into the forward cabin and started rummaging around in his lockers.

Wolf moved aft and into the galley and pulled out a pot and some soup mix. Pouring water into the pot, he put it onto the propane stove and fired up the burner. While it came to a boil he turned to the chart table and rolled the chart up to one side, then opened up the cooler. Pulling out bread rolls, butter, cheese and some sort of sliced meat, he made up a plate of sandwiches. By that time the water was boiling so he dumped in the soup mix, and put it to simmer. Thinking some garnish would be nice, he opened up a cabinet and pulled out some pickled beets, pickles and some Japanese pickled something or other. (What it was he had no clue, he'd bought it because it looked "interesting". He figured he'd find out soon enough)

A few minutes later Kat appeared in the main cabin, wearing one of his long sleeve white shirts, and a pair of fleece track pants that were not too badly paint stained for Wolf to have tossed them. She paused for a moment to pull on a sweater. The boat was still at ambient temperature around 13C. Wolf was used to it and hadn't noticed. She had put the boots back on, this time with a couple of pairs of work socks.

Wolf said "Lunch is almost ready. How about you open up the table." Pointing to the leaf on the dinette side, he told her to "Lift the folding leaf up on the dinette side and swing out the supports." She worked her way into the dinette and did so. Then she turned aft towards Wolf as he passed her the plate of sandwiches and other stuff. Finally he brought out bowls, spoons and then picked up the pot of soup and brought it around the end of the galley counter to the table.

He sat down, and Kat ladled out some of the soup for both of them, and they fell to, eating like they'd starved for a week. Never had plain sandwiches, soup and pickles tasted as fine as they did now. After finishing the first bowl and a sandwich without speaking, they started talking about what they needed to do to survive.

"I guess the first thing we should do is a meet n greet with the neighbours." Wolf mused.

"Sure, and find out if any one has heard anything new. We should see how they are fixed for food and water too. I guess we will have to do some shopping later, and we will need some help doing that. We need weapons as well. These wrench handles are OK but I'd rather have something designed for the job. I need some cloths too." she said

Yeah, shopping is going to be a treat. The Komatsu will do for transport but we need to be able to get into a store and have people watching our backs and help with the scavenging and loading. At least half a dozen or so should do the trick."

"We need to find a map and a phone book. I'm not that familiar with this area, so knowing where to go for food and cloths is beyond me." Kat noted.

"I expect that we'll find both in the clubhouse. We'll check out the kitchen area too for food and such before we go talk with the other people."

With that, Wolf ate the last bit of his sandwich, stood up and started moving the remains of lunch into the galley sink. The leftover pickles and what not he put into the cabinet, then filled the sink with water and soap.

The dishes were cleaned up in short order and they were set to do the visits to the neighbours. But before Wolf headed up the ladder to the deck he opened up a tool drawer, and pulled out a pair of wire cutters, then turned towards the sealed locker where his guns were under bond. The cutters made fast work of the seal and he lifted the hatch to reveal several weapons. One was a decent if ancient sniper rifle, based on the Swedish M-1896 pattern rifle. He'd bought it back in his college days and fitted it with a half decent Bushnell scope. Voila, poor man's sniper rifle. He'd actually been able to get decent groupings out to about 300 meters and could actually boast about hitting 5 out of 5 on a 12 inch target at 800. His old buddy Neil hadn't believed it even when he'd been there to watch it happen.

The next was a stainless steel Ruger Mini 14, while the 3rd was a Winchester Defender combat shotgun, also made from stainless steel. Last but not least a Soviet SKS rifle. Beside those four was a locked case which he opened up to show a Smith and Wesson Stainless 686, a Star model B, (a colt 45 look alike but in 9mm), a Walther P-38 and a Luger P-08. There were several boxes of .357 magnum loads for the 686, a fair amount of 9mm and about a thousand rounds for the SKS.

He pulled out the 686, and a holster. Then he turned to Kat and asked her if she was still comfortable with guns.

"I haven't had one in my hands for a long time but yeah, I'm still comfortable. I see you still have the Star. I'll take that one." She said as she put out her hand.

"Ok. Here you go." as he handed over the handgun, the magazines and a box of cartridges. Digging about, he pulled out a clip on holster and handed that to her as well. He watched as she loaded the 3 magazines, racked the slide, checked the bore, inserted a mag into the butt of the handgun, released the slide, dropped the hammer and put on the safety. Then she put it into the chip on and hung that from her pants.

He turned back and put a pad lock on the locker, and then said to her "Ok, lets go see the neighbours.


	7. Chapter 7

Sabre dancing with the Dead Ch 7

Tokonosu Yacht Club

14:45 April 16, 20xx

Day 2

Wolf stepped down into the dink, then turned to help Kat down. Once she was seated, he turned to the outboard and got it started. Giving it a couple of minutes to warm up, he had Kat cast off, and they motored over to the club landing dock.

"I thought we were going to meet the others?" Kat asked.

"Thought about that, but I think it makes more sense to find out what food supplies are stocked in the club. That way we can let others know what there is if they need something for the immediate future. Getting organized for a supply run will take some time yet."

"Right. Good idea."

As the two walked up the ramp onto the landing, Kat wrinkled her nose up, and said "Oh my God, what a mess!" as she caught sight of the parking lot out beyond the truck. A 100 foot diameter section of parking lot, covered with bits of tissue, assorted appendages and blood. Lots of blood. Road Kill Pizza.

"Hmmm. Crap. We'll have to do something about that mess right quickly before they start to rot. Thank god it's still pretty cool." Wolf paused at the top of the ramp. He thought about it for a moment. "I wonder if there is a heavy duty pressure washer here. We can use that but it will take a good long while to do and what happens if we flush that crap into the harbor?"

"Maybe we can get some of the others to help us shovel the chunks into a heap and we can burn it. Pressure wash the rest of it into a pit off to one side and bury it." Kat grimaced as she looked at the mess on the pavement. "You know, it might have been a better idea to draw them out of the yard and THEN squish them."

"Yeah well, live and learn. It's not every day you go through a zombie apocalypse you know. I didn't expect to be munching up dead people by the dozens when I woke up a couple of days ago."

They turned towards each other, and immediately burst into laughter as the insanity of the situation caught up with them.

Wolf gasped out "I hope you're keeping notes Kat. So you can write the 'Zombies 101 Handbook' or 'Zombie Apocalypse for Dummies' later." They laughed for a fair long time before they finally got hold of themselves and wiped away the laugh tears.

"S' not a bad idea about burying them though. I can see a small tractor over by the cradles that has a back hoe on it. I can dig a pit in the lawn at the end of the parking lot and wash the mess into that. All of it, to hell with burning it all. Let the stuff dry for a bit and then back fill the hole. I wonder if we can find some quick lime." He mused.

"Ok, but first lets go see what stores we can find, and meet the others." Kat said as she pointed to the club building. "We're need help for this clean up anyway so let's get to it." She turned and headed to the front door of the club, and headed back towards the dining area, Wolf in trail.

Walking through the dining room, clearing the room as she went, she turned to the double doors leading to the kitchen area. Very quietly she opened the door, Star B in hand, and looked around. Nothing moved. She reached onto a shelf near the door and pulled down a stainless steel mixing bowl, and tossed it with a clatter across the tiled floor. Wolf stood behind her, his 686 now drawn and pointing upwards, covering her from one side. They waited for a minute or two, and nothing moved.

"Looks good" she said over her shoulder as she walked over to the door of the cool room. Wolf headed down a hall to the left, and into the dry goods storage area. Most of the boxes were labeled in Japanese and English so he could make out what they had. Sacks of rice were sacks of rice in any language.

The two of them came together after a few minutes and compared notes. It appeared that food would not be a problem for at least a couple of weeks as far as staples went. Other items, like fresh vegetables were not in such supply, they might last for 4 or 5 days at the most.

On their way out, Wolf hit the bar and liberated a couple of bottles of rum. He winked at Kat, who in turn picked up a bottle of Cointreau and another of Drambuie. She had always had a thing for liqueurs.

They walked back down to the dink, and headed out to the first of the boats. She packed the 4 bottles into the small locker up in the bow and turned towards the first boat they were heading towards. As they motored over, Wolf told her that he wasn't planning on actually getting much more than 10 feet away from them. She wondered why, but didn't ask. Wolf had his way of doing things. She figured his 'spidey senses' as he called them must be pegged for some reason. She looked down at the butt of the Star B, making sure it was accessible.

Moving slowly down the line of docks, they found that those nearest the shore were lifeless. Or at least they were until the sound of the outboard caused the critters on board to stir and show themselves. As they passed by, some of the things actually stumbled over the side or transom and fell headlong into the water where they flailed about. Wolf put the outboard into neutral and they watched them thrash about. Even the ones that ended up along side a dock couldn't get out, because they didn't try. Swimming towards the dink was apparently also a lost cause, because none of them could swim. They just bobbed around, flailing their arms about and slowly drifting down the fairway as the tide went out.

This solidly confirmed the concept of safety afloat, but Wolf wondered what would happen if the things got near a beach or shore. They could stumble back up to dry land. Not a good thought. That in mind, he nudged the dink closer, and taking the oar in hand, he started to bash them in the head. That seemed to work pretty well until one of them managed to grab onto the gunnel and nearly capsize them. Kat shot the thing in the head and it let go. Wolf pulled away from the mass.

"Ok, that was stupid." She glared at him.

"Yup, it sure was. Won't be doing that again." He replied with a sheepish look. "Good shooting though."

They continued to scan the docks and it was the same all over. Any boat that was still tied up was either empty or blood covered and with critters milling about. So they headed back out to the moorings. As with most yacht clubs, there were lots of docks but also a few moorings where passing boats could tie up over night if they didn't want to pay for a dock and didn't mind rowing over if they needed to use the amenities of the club. The Tokonosu club had a good 25 moorings, and all but 3 were occupied. Most of them were power boats, but there were a few sailboats in the lot.

As they approached the first boats, Wolf decided that trying to speak to the people individually was really a waste of time. He looked at Kat and explained what he had in mind. So when they got near enough to the boats, all she did was tell people that the area was clear, food was available and that they would be having a meeting in 1 hour to discuss the situation, gather news and try and set up groups to handle various items. First on the list was the disposal of the parking lot mess. Most of the people she spoke with agreed to come, a few were still afraid but the majority would be there.

The ones too afraid to come ashore were asked about their food and water supplies, and for the most part they were all in fair to poor shape. Especially those on smaller boats with minimal cabins and arrangements. Wolf thought about them for a moment and he could see that people were afraid, but he decided on the spot that he'd be damned if he was going to hump supplies back and forth for them. He had Kat tell them that. That changed a few minds, not that the people were happy about it, but he figured this was an all hands on deck situation. The more the merrier.

Kat having translated all that he figured needed to be said, he turned the dink around and headed back to the club landing. As he tied up, he decided to pull the fuel hose off the tank and motor and bring it inside with him. Chaining the dink up might be a bad idea if they needed to get away in a hurry, but once pushed off from the landing, he'd have time to reattach it and start the motor. Not to mention that it made the dink harder to steal.

They pushed the door to the club open, and listened. Quiet. Entering slowly, they cleared the place once more, and then made for the bar. Mixing themselves each a drink, they sat at one of the dining room tables conversing, and waited for the others. Half an hour later, the first group came in.

A young man, about 30 or so, Japanese along with his wife, or girlfriend. They waved, and headed into the kitchen area. Ten minutes later they both came out carrying some supplies. These they put on the floor near another table, and seeing Kat and Wolf drinking, went and made themselves something.

They came back, and introduced themselves. The man was Kenji Todamatsu, and his wife, Fujiko. They started speaking in Japanese, but when Kat explained that Wolf didn't speak it, they politely switched to English. As they chatted, a few more came into the dining room. One was dressed in cammies, and carried his rifle. He stood off to one side, looking somewhat unsure of himself and those around him. Two more showed at the entrance, an older gent with his wife in tow, who headed straight to the bar, mixed themselves a drink and also joined the group around Kat and Wolf.

"Hi, I'm Wally Tomlinson, and this is my wife, Elaine." Wolf and Kat introduced Kenji and his wife, and then themselves.

"Thanks for showing up like the 7th Cavalry. We were thinking we were going to have to pull out and head elsewhere. Not that there's much point, the shortwave radio is, or rather was reporting this mess all over the world. Local radio and TV went down by the end of yesterday, and my single side band radio and VHF all reported pretty much the same thing."

"You've been in touch with others? This is all over the place?" Wolf asked.

"Yeah, I've had Berlin, London, Paris, Moscow, Tokyo, Washington and Johannesburg up on the shortwave, or at least I did 'til this morning. Now I can't get anything from them. I've been using the SSB, talking to some ham operators but they are pretty much all off the air now too. Local VHF communications say the JSDF and local police and emergency services are retreating and consolidating their front farther to the north, on the other side of the river. I think they also decided that the tsunami wall was a natural defense line. Civilians are trying to get in behind the line but the deaders are nipping at their heels." Wally reported. "By the way, using a heavy truck for an APC was a pretty damn good idea. But I gotta tell ya, it sure made one hell of a mess of the parking lot. We're gonna have to clean that up pretty damn quick or risk getting all sorts of problems."

Elaine spoke up, "We run the risk of disease if we don't clean that mess up. And we have to keep it out of the water too, because we don't know anything about the factors that cause this thing. I'd give my left arm for a few barrels of disinfectant. Even bleach would help. I think all we can do is collect it up and burn it."

Kat told them all that that was the first thing on the agenda. She mentioned Wolfs idea to dig a pit, just as a young Japanese woman in working attire walked up to the group.

"I can dig your pit for you. The tractor out back has a backhoe and I can run it. Where do you want the pit?" she asked.

"I was figuring along the north end of the parking lot, as far from the clubhouse as we can get."

"OK, I can do that, the soil there is natural, not fill like what we are standing on. There are some pretty major pieces of rock and concrete rubble under us." She replied.

"Are there any high pressure wash units in the yard?" Wolf asked her.

"Yes, we have 3 of them, gasoline driven on hand carts. We use them to clean the boats when they come out of the water." she replied. "Oh... my name is Eriko. I work here at the Club, along with those two over there." as she pointed to two more people who had just come in.

More people kept coming in, and sitting down away from the group around Wolf and Kat. Wolf didn't give it much thought, people handled stress in different ways. Lets face it, the world had gone to hell, and caution was a good way to stay alive. If they wanted to stay back a ways and get the lay of the land, it was all good to him. Some of them came in, grabbed some food and zipped back out the door without a word. Again, it didn't matter. Maybe they would come back to see what was up or they'd hide out for a while. His 'spidey senses' have been in full on combat mode since this shit got started and he wasn't about to back off from being cautious either. Who knew who had had the luck or the brains to get this far? Good people? Bad people? Hard workers or slackers? Someone who cared about his fellows or someone who would drop anyone else into the shit just to save themselves? It would take a while to see what developed but he'd be living and breathing 'condition red' for a long while yet. He chuckled to himself for a moment. There would have been a lot of people going from white to red, orange or black at the speed of light lately.

The conversations went on until Wolf glanced at his watch, looked around at the people here and decided it was time to get the show on the road. He stood up, and asked those near his table to grab a seat so he could get things moving. After they'd sat down he turned to the bar and turned on the speaker system he'd noted earlier. Kat came up beside him, and he got started.

"Good afternoon. My name is Wolf. This is Kat, and we called you together to see if we can get a game plan happening here to make sure we survive this disaster. I know from what I've seen on the way here from up in the hills that Tokonosu is filled with hordes of zombies, and we are in a full on survival situation. That means we all have to pool resources and skills, and try to keep on living. To that end we cleaned out the area around the club, and secured the compound. Given the way this place is laid out, as long as the gates remain closed, none of those things can get in here. We removed every stairway from the hill on this end to the hill on the up river end and there is nothing in between to allow anything over the top. The club area has a wall at either end, with 4 gates. We have food resources for about 2 weeks for staples and about 2 or 3 days worth of fresh foods." He paused and took a sip of his drink, then turned again to the people.

As he was about to start again, someone at the back of the room, one of those who had sat back and not introduced himself, stood up, pointed at Wolf and demanded "Who are you to take charge? You are not even Japanese!"

"And who might you be? Wolf asked.

"My name is Yoshimitsu Yamato. I work for the city of Tokonosu."

"Well Mr Yamato, I'm not taking charge. I am pointing out the current situation, and trying to organize a work force to take care of the mess outside. But if you would like to step up to the plate and take charge, knock yourself out. The mike is yours." With that Wolf turned to the bar, put the mike down, picked up his drink, and went to sit down with Kat and the others.

Mr Yamato stood up and moved to the bar. Picking up the mike he started to speak in a forceful voice.

"Ladies and gentlemen, we need only remain here until the central government gets rescue parties here to put down this riot. We ha...

"Riot? Are you nuts? Have you been paying any attention to the people out there being torn to pieces, dying and coming back to life?" Others shouted at him.

"Please, remain calm. I am quite sure that..."

The loud comments went right on. Finally the quiet lad in the cammies hollered "Shut up you fool and give the mike back to Wolf. You have no clue what is happening."

'You can't speak to me in that tone of voice. I am a city official and as such am in charge during an emergency, not this foreigner." Yamato cried.

Wally stood up from the table and started to speak to Yamato. "Bub, your city is just about dead, the country is in total chaos, and the rest of the world is as well. There IS no central government anymore, all services and organization has fallen apart. He went on to relate what he'd been hearing on the various radio frequencies most of yesterday and all of today.

Yamato tried once more to regain control but was booed back to his chair in short order. Wally looked at Wolf and pointed to the mike. "Have at it Wolf. You were doing fine."

Once again, Wolf took up the mike. This time he looked around the room for a moment before speaking. "Is there anyone else who wants to have a chance to give it a try?" He waited. No one else said a word. "OK then."

"Our first big problem is to clean up the mess in the parking lot before it starts to rot. Elaine here has pointed out all the potential for disease, vermin and other problem if we leave it there, hoping rain will wash it away. To that end, Eriko said she can dig a pit at the edge of the lot, and we can use power washers to wash the mess into the pit. The equipment is here in the yard. Now ideally we would have to cover it with quick lime but I have no idea where to find some. But we have to wash it away soon." he paused. "Any comments?"

A woman stood up hesitantly. Wolf acknowledged her and she started to speak.

"I think I can help you with that. I am Saeko Sahashi. I am... Or rather I was the warehouse manager for Takagi Shipping. Our warehouse is 8 blocks from here on the other side of the fishing harbor. Kuma here..." She pointed to the young man sitting beside her, "Unloaded half a dozen containers from China last week. They are full of drums of Calcium Oxide for the local steel mill."

"Takagi Shipping huh? What else do you have in the warehouse at the moment?" Wolf grinned at her. Sounds to me like we have our first scrounging mission already. I'll drive! Who wants to come along? We need at least 4 more. Kuma, and Saeko, I assume you will be coming?"

They both nodded in the affirmative.

He looked at the young man in the combat uniform. "How about you? You still have ammunition for that rifle?" He asked.

"Yes, I do. Not much but I still have about 60 rounds left. I will come." he replied. "My name is Corporal Yamata, JSDF."

Another man stood, "I will come as well, if you have a weapon for me."

"I can take care of that. What's your name sir?" Wolf replied.

"My name is Saburo. Saburo Sakai."

"No kidding? You wouldn't be related to Saburo Sakai, the Japanese fighter pilot of WWII?"

"Yes. I am honored to be his grandson. Like him, I too am a fighter pilot." Saburo nodded.

"Well I'm pleased to meet you. I met your grandfather at an airshow in the US about 30 years back. I've read his book at least half a dozen times over the years." Wolf said with a smile. "Alright, let's get ready and see about this quick lime. I have to get over to my boat to get some gear. The rest of you hang loose til I get back. Kat, lets go."

Most of the people headed back to their boats, taking supplies with them. The four going on the mission waited, talking to each other while Wolf and Kat headed back to Sabre Dance.

–-Author's notes: I don't own HOTD, or any of its characters. I just get to play in their universe. All characters in this story (So far) are my own.

Thanks to MarshalZhukov and Draco38 for their reviews and PMs. Good guidance, which I will try to follow. Other reviews gratefully accepted, as long as they are constructive and non-abusive.


	8. Chapter 8

Sabre dancing with the Dead Ch 8

Tokonosu Yacht Club

15:55 April 16, 20xx

Day 2

By the time Wolf and Kat got back to Sabre Dance it was pushing 4pm. The sun would be gone by 7:30

and it would be full dark about half an hour later. Plenty of time if things went smoothly. Wolf was already running the mission through his head, trying to determine where they might run into problems and how to deal with them.

As he opened up the gun locker and pulled out the SKS and the Mini 14 and ammunition for them both, he thought about how they would exit the compound. Thinking about it, he took the P-38 out as well. He had already come to the conclusion that some one would have to get up the stairs to the top of the wall and see where the critters were and to distract them. While they were occupied, the gate would open for the Komatsu and out they would go. Right.

He opened the drawer on one side of the chart table and picked up the loudhailer. Turning it on, he clicked the talk button a couple of times. Yup, it was still good to go. That should draw them away from the gate.

His next thought was how to open a shipping container, that was locked. The battery powered mini grinder that he had on board to cut the shrouds in case of a dismasting would do nicely. Bolt cutters wouldn't hurt either.

Now since they were going to what was potentially a treasure trove, it made sense to know what was in the building. To do that they'd have to take away all the import documents. Thankfully this shouldn't amount to much more than a couple of filing cabinet drawers full of paper. To handle that he pulled out a bagged genoa and dumped the sail out. The bag would do nicely.

Communications. He'd take the hand unit and make sure Kat and Wally were monitoring the same frequency. First aid? Not much point was there? If you got bit, you died. That pretty much covered the gear for the mission.

Kat watched him as he prepped. "Do you want me to come along?" She asked him as he dug out his load bearing harness and filled the canteens and put the ammo for the SKS into one of the pouches.

"No, why put both of us in danger? I think it will go well, but you never know. I don't want you hurt" he replied.

"So you just want me to sit here and wait until you come back... IF you do?" She asked sharply, slightly annoyed with the idea, afraid of the horrors walking around outside the compound. And of what could happen to the man who had just walked back into her life.

"No Kat, you won't be sitting here waiting. First you can get Eriko to working on the trench and washing down the parking lot. Then I want you and a couple of volunteers to strip some horns and batteries out of the cars here, get some wire and rig them up on top of the tsunami wall. Put one in the middle of our wall, and then a couple more farther out a couple hundred yards down towards the warehouse." Wolf replied as he pulled out the Mauser with the scope. "If you can't find the wire, don't worry about the ones out past our boundary wall. Just hook them up to the battery on site and someone will have to man that station if we need it. I also want you as high sentry, with the rifle. You can tell us what's going on while we are inside the warehouse."

"You trust my shooting after all these years?" She asked, some what mollified by his answer.

"Damn right I do. I watched you shoot out to 800 yards before. You can still do it. I'm depending on it"

"Right then, horns and sentry. Are we ready?" Kat asked while pocketing a box of shells for the 6.5mm long rifle.

"Yeah. Lets hump this stuff into the dink and we're off."

10 minutes later they were tied up to the club dock, and walked into the dining room. Wolf handed the Mini 14 to Saburo, along with 4 magazines and then started to brief the four who were going with him on the plan. Most importantly, silence was of utmost importance. Kat in the meantime approached Wally and Elaine, both of whom were still there, hoping to help. She waved over Eriko as well. When she had them together, Kat started to outline what needed to be done while Wolf and the rest of them ran the mission.

"Eriko, could you start digging the pit? The sooner that is done, the sooner we can wash the muck into it. You figured that it would be best to dig over at the far end of the lot?"

Eriko nodded. "Yes, I'll get started right now. I will get Tamichi to pull out the spray wash units and get them ready as well."

"Good. The tractor can help draw critters to the wall at that point, letting the truck have an easy exit from the other end." she said as she looked at Eriko.

"How big do you want the pit to be?" Eriko asked

"I think it would be best to dig a long trench. That way we can spread the crud out over a long area and put more lime on it once the others get back. Plus it will be easier to direct the muck into a trench that it would be to steer it all towards a small pit. What do you think?

"Yes, that would be easy to do and make it a lot simpler to wash down the parking lot. I'll get started right away." She said as she headed over to Tamichi, the other yard worker over to get that end of things going.

"Wally, how about you pulling some horns and batteries out of the cars in the lot. Leave the trucks alone, we can use them to carry stuff we scrounge. I also need you and a couple of the others to find some wire to rig up the horns to the outside of the Tsunami wall. We need them to draw any critters away from the gate that the truck will use."

'OK, I'm on it." Wally agreed. He went off to speak to Kenji and Yamato the city guy.

"Elaine, could you get with Fujiko and see what we need in terms of medical supplies? Right now you're our senior medic. When the guys get back from the warehouse we can see about getting what you need. I found a phone book and a city map behind the front counter. Oh and poll the people that haven't come ashore yet and see if there is a doctor in this crowd. That's one thing we forgot about. Who knows, maybe we'll get lucky." Kat paused in thought for moment. "Actually, grab the club register or some ledger out of the office, and see if you can put together a list of who has what skills. It'll come in hand. Kat suggested.

"Right. Sounds like a plan." Elaine said over her shoulder as she headed over to where Fujiko sat quietly watching.

In the mean time Wolf and the others went over a rough game plan as Saeko Sahashi outlined the layout of the warehouse and office space. She noted all the doors, and other access point, but wasn't sure if they had been secured before they made the mad dash down the road to the club. She, like the others had figured safety afloat was the ticket and was lucky in having a small cabin cruiser moored here. She wondered if her husband was still alive.

Plan hashed out, they all headed to the Komatsu. Wolf and Saeko climbed into the cab, while the others rode in the box. As soon as he was ready he radioed Kat to head up onto the wall with the loudhailer. She came out of of the club but headed to the truck. She climbed up the ladder, opened the cab door, said "excuse me" and leaned past Saeko. Whispering in his ear, she kissed Wolf, then turned and headed for the far steps. She reached the top and was soon back on the VHF.

"Wolf, there are a couple of dozen in a loose bunch near your gate. I'm going to start on the loudhailer now. I'll let you know when you can open the gate."

Ok, Keep em busy. The truck has cooled off. I need a couple of minutes before she is up to operating temperature. If you can't draw them all off, I'll wipe the ones who don't move towards you." He replied.

Kat stood on the platform at the top of the wall. She was down at the far north end, just where the club boundary wall hit the Tsunami Wall. She looked down and saw the tractor with the shovel coming towards here, and noticed that some of the critters out on the street were indeed tracking on that noise. She clicked the on/off switch on the loudhailer, and started talking. The critters farther way turned towards her as well and started ambling away from the gate Wolf would use. After a couple of minutes she paused to give Wolf the go ahead to start up.

She looked to the south end again, just in time to see a jet of black smoke belch from the Komatsu's stack. She checked the progress of the critters, and the nearest ones to the gate Wolf would use were at least 60-75 feet away and heading towards her. She continued to speak, drawing them. As she looked towards the north in the direction they would be traveling, she could see more coming towards her position. She figured there must be at least a hundred. She glanced into the compound next to their's and saw more critters shambling towards her from that direction. She also noticed a few fishing boats also had people waving at her. Something to be checked into later.

Five minutes later, Wolf called her. "We are warmed up and ready to roll. How's the gate?"

"They are all at least a hundred yards from the gate now and more coming from the north. At least a hundred or so. I would say you are good to go."

Tamichi was standing by on the gate controls and started them open at Wolf's wave. Wolf put her into gear and they rolled out past the gate. As soon as the truck's back end was clear, Tamichi hit the close button and the gate rumbled shut. Turning left once on the street, Wolf brought the truck up to maximum speed. He made a point of wiping out any critters in his way and within a few minutes they were turning into the Takagi Shipping complex. As planned they drove around the building, checking doors to see what was open. Saeko wasn't sure if her people had shut them all as the panic started or had just bolted.

The complex was huge, projecting a thousand feet or so into the bay, with docks on either side. One side was equipped with the big overhead cranes needed to load and unload container ships, one of which was tied along side. The gangway was up, and Wolf wondered if the crew was still on board. As they moved round the building they ran into small groups of critters. Saeko recognized some of them as being Takagi employees. Wolf looked at her, and with a grimace she told him to run them down. They had to secure the area before they could even think of getting out of the truck. On the other side of the building, this dock was equipped with a series of roll on/roll off dock plates. There was another ship here, but the gangway was down, and they could see critters milling around up on the deck. It appeared that all of the ground level doors were closed on this side, which meant that some one would need to enter the building, clear it (that would be fun) and open one of the double doors.

During the planning, it was decided that Capt. Sakai, Cpl Yamata and Kuma would make their way in via one of the personnel doors and quietly open the ground level overhead door. Saeko and Kuma both agreed that there wouldn't likely be that many people inside as most of the workers had fled in different directions when the shit hit the fan. It was after all a bonded warehouse with tight entry restrictions to most areas. Large areas of floor were delineated with chain link fences for the bonded goods.

Wolf pulled up to one of the personnel doors, they bailed out, and waited while the truck moved a hundred feet towards the overhead doors. Wolf put her in park and started laying on the horn to attract anything inside to that area and give the entry team a better chance.

Kuma ran his pass card over the reader, while Saburo and Shinji covered him. The door opened outwards, so he pulled it open and waited while the other two cautiously checked out the immediate area. It was clear. They could see a half dozen critters milling around near the overhead door and these would have to be cleared. The two armed men took positions behind a stack of boxes, using them as steady rests for their rifles. Two shots rang out, two heads exploded, and the team moved silently off to one side to a new position as the remaining deaders turned and staggered toward their firing position.

Again they sought out a stack of boxes for steadying the rifles and two more bit the big one. Not bothering to move, they nailed the last two, and moved towards the overhead door, keeping an eye out for any stragglers. Kuma hit the door switch and it lifted up. Wolf in the mean time had moved right up to the door, and was into the building as soon as he had clearance. Kuma shut the door again.

Wolf and Saeko got out, and they set off on their part of the mission which was to pull the records from the office. The other 3 would head down slowly to where the containers were, and open up the one they needed, then pull out one barrel of quick lime and load it into the truck. As the three headed off into the depths of the warehouse, Wolf was pleased to see that Kuma was not having any problems reading the hand signals that the other two were using. Ex-military? He'd have to ask when they got back. One thing for sure, Kuma had his head constantly swiveling around. As did they all.

Saeko followed him to the front of the building, staying on his right flank. He'd passed the P-38 to her for defense, after a quickie course on which end did what, but they were all hoping stealth would serve. The 6 shots from the other team had sounded like cannon fire in the huge building, and they didn't want to inadvertently draw more deaders if there were some around. They kept to the sides of the isles, and only ran into 3 individuals on their way to the front offices. As each one came into sight, Wolf tossed something towards the opposite side of the isle and let them pass unmolested. Saeko was visibly freaked by this but kept her cool. It helped her a lot that Wolf settled into a double handed Weaver stance and was tracking the critter's head with the 686 until it was well past.

It didn't take them long to get into the office, and Wolf made short work of the two poor girls who'd turned. The wrench handles still did the job. Once they were down, Saeko took the sail bag and opened up the file cabinets. The paperwork made a fairly large pile but fit nicely into the bag. That part of the mission complete, they both headed back to the truck. As they approached the door leading out to the warehouse a dead dock worker came lurching round the door jam and almost got Saeko, who now freaked and started blazing away with the P-38 while screaming at the top of her lungs. Out of 6 shots, she missed him at least twice and never once hit the head. Wolf took him down with his 686, grabbed the warehouse manager by the arm and dragged her away, out into the ware house. He then wrapped one arm around her and put his other hand hand over her mouth to stop the screaming. She struggled, until he whacked her on the head with the muzzle of his pistol. That shut her up.

"Shut up for cryin' out loud." he whispered in her ear.

"S s sorry, I'm just not as f f fearless as you. That thing scared the s s shit out of me."

"OK. Well try to keep quiet, and let's get moving before all the rest of them get here. God knows the screaming and shots will have dragged every one within a mile to us. Look! We gotta move now!" he said, pointing to the corner of the office about 40 feet away where a couple more were coming round the corner.

He grabbed Saeko by the hand and dragged her off towards the truck, constantly looking around for any more deaders. As they advance, a couple of shots rang out from the far end of the warehouse. Then a dozen more. Wolf started to sprint towards the truck, Saeko hot on his heels. Climbing into the cab he started the truck up and turned it down the wide isle fronting the racks, towards the end of the building where it appeared that the other guys were in deep kimchi. Running down the isle along the doors to the end of the building, they hit the inside container area at the far end. This is where Kuma had parked the cans they needed. As they turned the corner they came upon some more deaders, all heading towards a large container lift. This vehicle was like a large cherry picker with a boom out front and a large grappling set for picking up a can and moving it around. They saw Kuma in the cab, Saburo and Shinji on the roof, firing at about 2 dozen critters milling round the machine. Slamming on the brakes, Wolf laid on the horn. Kuma shut down the cherry picker, and this allowed Wolf to draw them away. Slowly he backed away, dragging the crowd with him.

Kuma waited til they were well away, started the cherry picker up again and reached up to grab the 3rd container in a stack. Wolf was now a good 100 yards back, still laying on the horn. Shinji and Saburo stayed on the roof, as Kuma started to follow the truck with the can up enough to see under. Coming up on the crowd following the truck he stopped as some turned towards him. Timing it well, he dropped the can down on top of them, then lifted it again. Now he laid on his horn. More turned back towards him and he repeated the action. Jesus what mess!

Wolf had stopped backing and was now on the catwalk of the Komatsu, shooting. After several minutes, the horde of deaders was down. Looking around, no more could be seen. Wolf backed up to the double doors, and turned to face nose out. Kuma followed and dropped the can off to one side. Saburo quickly jumped down, and used the mini grinder on the lock while Shinji stayed on the cherry picker roof as high sentry. While he did that, Kuma climbed down and ran to a small forklift, started it up, and headed to the can as Saburo pulled the doors open. Kuma paused while his partner spread the forks a bit so that they would slide round either side of the barrel. Moving forward Kuma picked up one barrel, backed up and turned to the truck, getting into position to place it in the truck box. The other two ran over to the Komatsu, and boarded it to help landing the barrel. Shinji again took up sentry, while Saburo guided the barrel down into the box. That done, Kuma ran to the personnel door to check the outside of the building. Saburo jumped down from the box, and went to the overhead door controls, waiting on Kuma to give him the thumbs up.

Kuma quietly opened the small door and looked out. It appeared that all the noise they'd created at the container end of the building had cleared this end, and he gave the thumbs up. The big door slowly opened, stopped and started down as the truck came clear. Saburo climbed aboard and he followed. So far so good.

Wolf headed back down the road towards the club compound. He picked up the VHF and called up Kat or Wally, advising them they were on their way back. By the time they got near the compound they could all hear the car horn blaring, drawing any critters to the sound. Wolf waited til all that were coming were massed under the horn, milling about. He brushed the big truck along the wall, wiping them out. By the time he got to the entry gate, it was open and they drove in. Quickly the gate shut. Eriko waved them over to where the trench had been dug, across freshly power washed pavement. She marshaled the truck to park parallel to the trench, signaled the shut down and told them to stay in the truck when they started to climb down. The bottom of the steps were covered in gore and the whole undercarriage was dripping crud on the pavement. Then she and Tamichi proceeded to hose down the truck and drive the putrid mess into the trench. It was pretty gory. Once that was done, she waved them down off the truck.

Wolf looked around and noted a few new faces, people he figured had gotten over the fear enough to come and help. Good. Many hands make light work and all that crap. One new guy brought over a ladder to the back of the truck box, and climbed up to open the drum while others passed up buckets and a shovel. In short order the lime was being spread over the remains. One person noticeably missing was that dipshit, Yamato. Probably still had his nose out of joint from the massive rejection of his power play. Oh well, too bad. As they started shifting the lime and spreading it over the pit, Kat came up to him and gave him a hug and a kiss. Relief showed clearly on her face as she stood beside him, hand in hand.

Clean up completed, every one headed into the dining room where Elaine, Fujiko and one of the new additions had turned to and created dinner for them all. After some pretty good chow, introductions of the new people, they did a couple of hours of debrief, picking apart the mission. This included some "no shit, there I was" tales by Kuma and Shinji, and a couple of hugs for Saeko who was still a bit shaken. Things learned on this trip would be used to improve their technique for more runs in the coming days. Taking Saeko aside, Wolf quietly took the P-38 back from her, figuring that there had to be a better shot than her. She'd done good but was a tad twitchy. Maybe she'd work it out. Finally, the party broke up around 11pm, and everyone headed off to their various boats.

So ended day 2.

Author's notes: I don't own HOTD, or any of its characters. I just get to play in their universe. All characters in this story (So far) are my own.

Thanks to MarshalZhukov and Draco38 for their reviews and PMs. Good guidance, which I will try to follow. Other reviews gratefully accepted, as long as they are constructive and non-abusive.


	9. Chapter 9

Sabre dancing with the Dead Ch 9

Tokonosu Yacht Club

07:05 April 17, 20xx

Day 3

Slowly daylight crept through a gap in the drapes. The window coverings not being completely solid allowed the light in the cabin to build up, until Wolf cracked an eye and looked at the big brass US Navy 8 day clock. Then he looked down to the mop of brown hair and one arm laying on his chest. Hmmmm. Last night had certainly been interesting. Now the question was whether this was just the usual survival instinct coming out or was there really a possibility of him and Kat getting it together again after all these years?

They have gotten back to the boat just after 11pm last night, and had sat up for another hour sipping rum and working out what to do next. After yesterday's mission and the debrief, it appeared that they or rather Wolf was the de facto leader of this motley crew whether he liked it or not. Yamato' nose was definitely out of joint. He was keeping to himself, ate dinner and left for his boat without saying a word. Every one else, including the newcomers gathered round as Saeko pulled the files out of the sail bag and handed out stacks to half a dozen tables so they could have a look and see what was in the warehouse.

It had already been decided that they would return to salvage any food stuffs and to see that all the doors in the building were closed and locked. They would then start at one end of the warehouse and do a sweep to kill any critters inside. It would make return runs much simpler if they didn't have to go through what had happened the first time every time.

Elaine and Fujiko had scoped out the locations of the nearest hospital and that of a major medical supply house which was not too far away, being a straight line drive north along the tsunami wall road almost to the river and a block west. They had debated long and hard over which one to hit. In the end, it was the supply house that was planned. They had also determined that they would need a much large team this time round. They also needed to find more ammunition for the sergeant's rifle. Or find him another rifle with more ammo. Shinji had gone through nearly 20 rounds out of the 60 he'd had when he got to the club. To that end, his JSDF armory was on the list, although that was likely stripped during the first day of the event. One could always hope. Shinji would lead that mission.

The quest to see if there was a doctor in the crew was a bust. No such luck but they did find a dentist and a veterinarian. Both were more than happy to provide what services they could. The dentist, Dr Shusui Yoshihama, not so much, but he looked to be a real hard charger type, and had already found out where the nearest dentist's office was, and was looking into setting up a mission to secure it. The vet said he would try to do his best, and under the circumstances, they were all happy to have him.

All in all, the roster of people in the compound had totaled out at 96 people. A few families, mostly though it was singles and couples who'd had the smarts or the luck to make it out to the moored boats. The ones who'd sheltered in boats tied to the docks had all died but for one group of strangers who'd been bright enough to keep quiet once they get there. They told of one or two critters stumbling past down the main dock and one which had apparently heard something which caused it to come out onto the finger. Where upon it promptly fell head first into the water and drifted off. That lot came out of their boat once they'd watched the Great Critter Munch (No idea who coined that phrase, probably Wally, but it was pretty popular) and then seen people out and about cleaning up the mess and getting stuff organized.

Anyway, after talking for an hour and a couple of belts of rum and a glass of Cointreau for Kat, they were wiped, and figured it was time for bed. That was a tad awkward as Wolf handed her some blankets and a pillow, so she could use the forward bunk and close the bulkhead door. She looked at him quizzically, as he mumbled about her privacy. At that point she tossed the items on the settee and asked him how the "sea going double" worked. 10 minutes later they were both in the double, and rapidly drifting off to sleep, having added a couple of Tylenol to the rum and Cointreau. The aches and pains from the previous night faded away and they slept.

As he lay contemplating his next course of action, the mop shifted, looked up at him and said "good morning." before hopping stark naked out of the bunk and disappearing into the forward cabin where the Air Head was. He on the other hand just lay back and nodded off again, at least until Kat came back and started poking at him.

"Come on, haul your carcass out of the sack. We have a lot of things to do today." With that said, she climbed back into the clothes she'd borrowed from his working gear, then climbed up the companionway and out into the cockpit. A few minutes later she came back down. "Elaine and Fujiko just headed into the clubhouse. I'm going to go over there and help get breakfast on the move. I decided last night that using the club dining room and the kitchen over there made more sense than schlepping groceries to the boats. We can get it organized and serve 3 meals a day if people will step up to the plate and help."

"I see the Vest Yorvik Feastocrat has returned from the dead." He said as he grinned at her.

"It makes sense, doesn't it? I don't have many skills, and we don't have kids who need a teacher at the moment do we? Plus I understand Japanese, love Japanese cuisine, and organized half a dozen feasts for groups twice this size." She said as she turned to go back up the steps to the cockpit. "Besides, Elaine and Fujiko can't do it all. There's too much to do. Now hustle or you can swim to the dock."

"Aye Aye, Captain, let me drag some clothes on." A moment later he was dressed, and scrounging round for his toilet kit. "You might want to grab some stuff for the shower. I guess you'll have to wash your undies and do without until they dry though."

"Now there's a thought." Kat mused as she turned back to grab some towels and some laundry soap.

As she did that Wolf got a strange look in his eyes, and disappeared into the forward cabin. He came back with a small bag full of woman's underwear, which he handed to Kat.

"Don't ask." was all he said.

Shaking her head, she turned once more for the steps, and was out in a moment with Wolf right behind her. He turned to lock up the boat, and then they climbed into the dink and rowed over to the dock. A few minutes later they were in the kitchen, with Kat explaining her mess hall idea. The other two liked it, and they were off on a planning session. Wolf headed over to the men's locker room, put his cloths and pistol into one of the lockers, then pad locked it with one of about a dozen locks he kept round for securing things. The shower was soothing to the aches and pains, and afterward he indulged in trimming his beard, and saving off the extra hair on his face. 10 minutes later he looked presentable and made his way to the dining room. Wally, Saeko, Kuma, Saburo and Shingi were already there poring over the import paperwork, separating useful stuff into piles. While they were finding some things, a lot the files were for commodities and items of no use to them. For instance, 1 container full of m en's hair tonic. A half container full of Dijon Mustard, the other half full of Pate de foie gras. Luxury no doubt but not hardly a staple. 6500 cellular phones. 2000 DVD players. 12 and a half tons of scrap metal. 3 honkin' big tree trunks for some religious thing. That sort of stuff. Great to fill a store with for sale or maybe a junk yard but as survival items, not worth a pinch.

Others came in gradually and introduced themselves if they were just coming ashore for the first time. Hearing the clatter of pots and pans in the kitchen a few of them went in to assist. Half an hour later they came trotting out bearing platters and pots full of breakfast items. Mostly it was Japanese fare, but they had gone out of their way to accommodate the Westerners in the crowd, of which there were now 7.

Pancakes. Even though they were the weirdest pancakes Wolf had ever seen, they were fantastic. Scrambled eggs, sausage and even a bit of bacon. Japanese items included white rice, Natto, miso soup, fish, seaweed and other things. For now, Wolf stayed with the western goodies. Plenty of time to get into Japanese cuisine once they had to start scrounging.

One thing he had to do was start picking up spoken Japanese. To that end he spoke with the four looking over the documents and asked them to help him learn. They were all very eager to try, and started right then. Half an hour later he had picked up some of the basics. As they talked they scanned page after page of import docs.

"Here are some that might be of use. Summer is coming and most of us only have the clothes on our backs so summer gear will be very much sought after. I have 11 different shipments in bond. Want me to open up the customs papers to see exactly what is there?" Saeko stated.

"Yeah that sounds like a plan. Kat has only a skirt, blouse and a jacket. No shoes or anything else. For now we can make out with what we have, but some warm weather gear will certainly hit the spot." Wolf replied as he checked out some sporting goods.

"Crossbows? I thought that they were pretty much illegal in Japan? Here's a shipment of 100 cartons of M-67 Cheetah cross bows. Plus a couple hundred boxes of bolts for it. Country of origin is China." He exclaimed.

Yes they are." Saburo replied. "There are very few archery clubs that use crossbows. They were never really popular through out our history. Too expensive, the Daimyos didn't want to pay for the making of them, even if it had the advantage of taking peasants and turning them into archers in time of war. The raw materials were just too expensive to make them in large quantities."

"Wolf, let me see those papers please?" Saeko put out her hand.

"Damn, we got sloppy. This paper work is misfiled which is how we found it. And you can kick me for not grabbing the rest of the paperwork." She groused.

"What do you mean" Shinji asked.

We should have grabbed all the export and transit papers too. That accounts for about 35% of what's in our warehouse at any given time." She blushed in embarrassment for forgetting such a thing.

"Don't feel bad Saeko, I worked in airfreight import and export for a long time, and I didn't think of it either." Wolf said with a grin. "Don't worry, we'll pick them up on the clearing mission."

Agreement came from Shinji and Saburo. Kuma thought for a moment before speaking. "You know, those crossbows might just save our asses."

"How do you mean? Saeko asked him.

"Well, Shinji is down to what? 40 rounds?

"Yes."

"Wolf, how much do you have for your weapons?"

"Hmm. 200 rounds of 6.5x55mm, about a 1000 rounds for the SKS, 500 for the Mini 14, 250 for the 686, and about a thousand rounds of 9mm. I can make some more .357 and 9mm but the rifle ammo, I can only reload for the 6.5mm. I only have hand loading dies for it and that's a one at a time proposition for match shooting. The Remington .223 I can reload if I can get dies for it which isn't very likely here. The SKS uses cases that can't be reloaded. So once that ammo is gone, its a club...Well it has a bayonet so I guess you could use it as a pig sticker in hand to hand. But I see what you mean." He replied.

"Ah, yes, I see it too. Silent, reusable ammunition and pretty accurate even for a novice at close range." Saburo noted.

"What about edged weapons? I have a cutlass, a hand and a half bastard sword as well as a Paul Chen Katana. The local cops were NOT impressed when I handed them the paper work and they insisted on seeing my locker and the locking arrangements." Wolf asked them.

"Paul Chen makes some pretty good Katanas. If you don't want to use it, I will take it. I have some skill with the blade." Saburo said.

"It' all good. I bought the katana intending on learning to use it but never had the time. I did do some practice with the cutlass, and it seems more suited to me. It'll do the job alright, Cold Steel put out a promo video of them chopping sides of beef in half with it. It'll do for me. The katana is yours Saburo. Hey how does that work anyway. I gather no one in Japan can own a sword yet damn near everyone has a katana or three hanging round? How do they get away with it?"

"Family heirlooms. The Japanese people would go nuts if the government ever even though to try to take them away. My family ended up as dirt farmers when the Meiji Restoration happened, but we still have blades from some of our ancestors. I even have my grandfathers naval sword." Saburo explained.

Kuma and Shinji both nodded. They too had ancestral weaponry and woe betide the silly government that tried to take them.

"Ok, so we have crossbows, and summer clothes. What else?"

That's all we've found so far. What do you think? Time for another mission?

"Yeah it looks that way. This time we need to take at least a dozen, armed as well as we can arm them. We decided last night to secure Takagi Shipping. That's going to take some manpower." Wolf replied.

Let's do a whip round and see who is up for it. With that said they split up and canvased the tables. Most said no thanks but they did make up their dozen. In addition to yesterday's team they now added David Courtney, Dave Cross, Kazuko Goda, Tsuneo Otana, Toshikasu Morihei, and finally Eriko and Tamichi Hara. Ten guys, two girls. Wolf figure they could arm them with 5 rifles, 3 edged weapons, and some boat hooks. Risky but that is what they had to work with. Then he thought to ask Eriko.

"Why not use the fire axes?" She asked. "We have a least half a dozen here and in the boat sheds."

"Yup, definitely too early in the morning for thinking. I need more coffee. Arigato, Eriko."

"Dō itashimashite, Wolf san."

"Doi-tashimashite? Doitashi-mashite, Dō itashimashite. Did that sound OK?" He asked.

Eriko chuckled as did several of the others. "Keep practicing, you'll get there someday."

"Hai." Wolf replied with a grin. "How about we brief in the new crew on what to expect out there, get our shit together and head out as soon as we can arm up. It's 9:10 already and we have a lot to do."

Saburo and Shinji both nodded. That said, Wolf turned and walked over to the kitchen where Kat and the others were cleaning up. She looked up as he entered the doorway and waved her over.

"We're going on a second mission. I would like you and Wally to organize the others for the noise maker crew and gate operator. We found some more hand helds so communication should be a lot better."

By this time she'd gotten used to the idea of staying while Wolf went out on the pointy end. It was one of the things they'd had a conversation about before dropping off to sleep. She just nodded, gave him a kiss, and asked him how soon.

"Figure half an hour to get set." He replied.

She said OK and turned back to the others.

As Wolf walked away, Saburo turned to the others and asked them how many of them were comfortable working in English. A tad more than half of them replied in the affirmative, and Saburo turned back to Wolf when he returned, for him to do the briefing. Wolf looked at him for a moment and told him to carry on. Nodding, the JSDAF Captain started to go into detail what the new mission entailed, a lay out of the building and outside spaces. He stressed absolute silence in motion and actions, in order not to draw any deaders. He then turned to Shinji and asked him to explain the movement of small groups, hand signals and the tactics to be used if contact was made with singles, or groups of deaders. Wolf watched Saburo and began to think about turning over the head position to him. Fluent in both languages, military training, and a good personality for interactions with others. Wolf really didn't want to be boss of this affair. 2.I.C. ? Yes. Boss? Not a chance.

By the time Saburo and Shinji had finished, people were trotting off in various directions to do all the things that needed doing, collecting the various items and getting things together at a rapid pace. Wolf headed back to his boat and loaded up everything he had that went bang or was sharp and pointy. He'd forgotten to mention the old Barnett crossbow he'd also taken when he left Canada. Bought long ago during his more rabid doomer phase, they would prove their worth now.

20 minutes later, they were all back by the Komatsu, ready to go. Kat and Wally manned the wall platform and Kat started the loud one sided conversation that drew the critters to her point. As they gathered, she would knock it off and let Wally draw them even farther from the gate with the car horn. All this was coordinated by hand signals they had worked out at the debrief the night before.

Wolf and Saeko climbed into the cab of the truck and got her running. Meanwhile everyone else piled into the box. The all clear signal came and one of the newer people opened the gate and they moved out onto the shore side road. Coming hard right, he ran her up to full speed and they made the Takagi facility in a few minutes. Moving down the container side of the building they checked the doors one by one and made notes on which were open. Once they did a complete circuit of the building, they pulled up to a personnel door on the container side, and let Kuma, Saburo and Shingi off. Moving down to the next overhead door, wolf laid on the horn, same as before. Again, Kuma cautiously checked the immediate area and then they entered. There were no critters anywhere near the big aisle, so he moved to the double door and opened it. The Komatsu entered, Kuma closed the door and Wolf shut her down. Everyone jumped off or out, and waited to see what developed. Who knew, it might be that there were none left inside.

5 minutes later, nothing. So, starting from the overhead, they all headed down the inside towards the sea. Each door was checked and locked if not already so. Two worked the doors, the rest of them formed a ring round them and they made steady progress down to the end and along the sea side (east) wall. A few doors open, but no critters. Wolf was curious as to why, and stepped out to the pier. Walking to the edge he looked down.

Two critters were in the water, entangled in some lines wriggling about like a caught fish. No others were to be seen. When he thought about it, it made sense. They couldn't see and so stumbled off the pier. B'bye! He couldn't complain, it made the clearing process easier. Returning inside, they finished the east wall and started back up the north wall, with all the big roll on/roll off ramps and doors. These were all closed, all of them were checked and locked. Proceeding to the west end (road end) they ran into a couple of critters, making short work of them with the swords. Saburo hadn't lied, he certainly knew what to do with the katana. And Wolf was quite pleased with the way the cutlass did it's thing. One stroke and off came a head. Shouting boo, and stepping silently to one side made giving them the coup de grace simple.

The others in the crowd looked a tad green as the two hacked their way through a half dozen critters farther along, right up by the offices. Again, Takagi employees, and Saeko was barely holding back tears by the time they were done. Leaving her and two others to act as cover, the group spread out across the building in a skirmish line. They then turned south and worked back to the seaward end, making a clean sweep from end to end, looking for the last critters. They found one more, and that was it. The building was secure.

Saeko worked quickly, pulling the rest of the files from the cabinets and stuffed them into the sail bag. Then she and her two companions headed back to the Komatsu to ditch the bag and help with the salvage of summer clothing. The import documents had been pretty specific and they had determined which containers and shelves to hit. Eriko, Dave Courtney and Tamichi joined Kuma as forklift drivers and quickly filled a space by one of the doors with case after case of summer clothing. Once they had the clothing, they went to find the crossbows and bolts. For this one they had to cut off a hardened steel lock, but the mini grinder made short work of that in a shower of sparks. Those cases ended up alongside the clothing.

Kuma had picked that area for a good reason, as he now checked the outside area carefully before opening the overhead dock door to show an open container on a trailer at the loading dock. He'd just finished clearing out that can when all hell broke loose and figured the amount of stuff they were going to take rated at least a 40 footer.

Half an hour later they were all loaded, and Kuma climbed into the cab of the transport and fired up the diesel tractor. He waited while Wolf brought the Komatsu outside. They secured the doors, and every one climbed aboard. Then they headed out of the Takagi compound and split up. Kuma headed to the club, VHF radio on the seat beside him to warn Kat. Wolf took the Komatsu north along the shore road, heading for the medical supply house. There were more than a few deaders on the streets now, ears perked up at the sound of the two diesels. Both vehicles advanced at a steady 20mph, crushing what ever got in their way. Kuma hit the VHF and told Kat to start the music again. He munched a couple of dozen deaders on the way to the gate and a larger group gathered round the car horn. In short order he turned into the open gate and watched it close in his rear view mirrors.

1\. Pardon my Japanese, I'm using Google Translate and we all know how hilarious that can be.

2\. Vest Yorvik Feastocrat: A title given to the person responsible for setting up the feast at an SCA event in the Canton of Vest Yorvik, an area west of Toronto Canada within the SCA. SCA is the Society for Creative Anachronism. We do medieval role playing and hammer each other with ratan swords. Google SCA.

3\. The Takagi Shipping facility is loosely based on what was once the Canada Steamship facility in Port Credit, Ontario. It was converted to a marina in the 70s, and can be seen in Google Earth.

Author's notes: I don't own HOTD, or any of its characters. I just get to play in their universe. All characters in this story (So far) are my own.

Many thanks to xbox432 for the review. The lack of Japanese has been addressed.

Reviews gratefully accepted, as long as they are constructive and non-abusive.

Anyone interested in following the progress on the real life Sabre Dance is welcome to visit my builder's blog. Just search for Sabredancing. You'll find it.


	10. Chapter 10

Sabre dancing with the Dead Ch 10

Tokonosu Shore Road

11:20 April 17, 20xx

Day 3

Wolf watched the transport driven by Kuma head towards the club compound in his rear mirror. He and the rest of the crew were headed to Fujiyama Medical Supply near the river and about 5 blocks inland. As he drove, occasionally wiping out critters, he pondered how this would go. At Takagi, they had the sea at their backs and on both sides which denied that line of entry to the dead. Most of them just went kerplunk into the bay and that was that. It dropped the numbers they had to deal with a lot. This place would be a whole different story. Well, they'd find out when they got there.

As they drove north along the shore side road, the numbers of critters got heavier as they got closer to the river which was more or less the bisector of the down town area. The main core was of course some 20 or 30 blocks east (inland) of the waterfront, but the buildings were wall to wall with little in the way of open spaces. They trundled along at 25mph, and started having a harder time with the numbers of dead appearing out of alleyways and from store fronts. At one point, a slight downward slant to the road and a heavy layer of mushed up corpses caused the Komatsu to start to slide a bit, until Wolf backed off on the throttle and dropped her down two gears.

He glanced back in the rear view mirrors and could see that his passengers were not entirely sure anymore that they should be doing this. Come to think of it, Wolf wasn't too sure either. The numbers were just getting larger and larger. So far they hadn't figured out how to climb the ladder to the cab, and the box lip was a good 6 feet off the ground. Still, the pucker factor was rapidly approaching high numbers. At the rate they were going, it seemed unlikely that they would even make it. There was just no way to keep the truck from attracting them in huge numbers.

He picked up the VHF and got Saburo on the other end.

"Saburo, this is turning into deep shit. I think we should abort. What say you?" he asked.

"Wolf, these people with me are barely holding it together. I agree, this is too dangerous without a better plan." Saburo replied. He then whispered something to Shinji who looked up and gave a very clear thumbs down.

"Ok, we abort." He swore. They would definitely need a better plan. "I'm going to head up the next major intersection and then loop back and down to the shore road again."

"That would be wise. We'll run into less dead that way. The sound of the truck won't have carried very far up the side streets...Or so I hope!" Saburo grinned sheepishly.

"Keep an eye on the ones ahead. I'm gonna be a tad busy for the next little while." Wolf told them.

At that moment a deader came flying down from somewhere overhead in a shower of glass shards. She missed the truck by a good 5-8 feet, but that was it for some of the crew in back. They started demanding that Wolf turn around immediately. Sorry to say, the tail they were dragging was pretty huge, At least 150-200 that had survived the passage of the truck and were following.

Shinji pointed his rifle off to one side, and fired one round straight up. Absolute silence. Then he started to dress them down as only a senior NCO could do, up one side and down the other. By the time he was finished, they were completely cowed and totally under his command. "Watashi wa karera ni jibun jishin o anata o nageru mae ni, shizukani." he hollered at them among other things. Saburo quietly translated via the vhf and Wolf had to take care he didn't laugh too hard and lose control. Something along the lines of Shut up or I'll toss your ass over the side.

They were coming up on a wider side street, so Wolf turned east onto it. Here the deaders were less numerous, and he had no problem making it to the next right. Turning onto it, He realized too late that it was jammed with a pig pile of cars. Putting it in reverse he slowly backed down to the east/west street they'd just been on, squashing several dozen under the rear wheels. So far it was working. As long as they didn't pile up high enough to let them reach something vital they were OK. By the time he'd backed onto the east/west road and had enough space to turn west again, they were fairly surrounded. Never stop moving for more than a second. Quick shift from reverse to forward. Run up through the gears. Thank God this thing they were in could haul a fair tonnage. It meant that bodies, no matter how many, didn't really impede it. She just kept grinding them down to slurry.

He glanced in the rear view. Shinji had things well in hand. So far nothing had appeared over the sides or back of the box. Saburo kept an eye on the boarding stairs, and at one point climbed out to lop the head off of one enterprising SOB who'd fallen onto the stairs and was trying to climb up them. The blow didn't take off the head, but it sure split that buggers skull. Saburo kicked the corpse loose and then climbed back into the box.

Wolf got them headed west again towards the shore road but it was pretty thick. He glanced at the fuel gauge, still better than half a tank. Oh well, nothing to do but push on until the crowd thinned out. He figured they'd made it close to the road that the supply depot was on, but as they say, close only counts in horseshoes and hand grenades. He filed that thought away for later.

As they left the core area, the horde thinned out, those way behind losing interest, and those in front being a lot less in number. He raised Wally on the VHF and told him it was a bust, and to start clearing the gate area. At that point Shinji came up on the radio and asked if they could try for the armory which wasn't too far from their current location. It was also in a more isolated area so the number of critters should be less. Nodding agreement, Wolf had Wally hold off on the gate, and he once again turned 180 and headed to the armory.

Tokonosu fronted on the Sea of Japan, facing into the sunset. The shore side road ran pretty much north and south, with the club being located on the southern side. They had driven north to get to the Takagi warehouse, farther north to try and get to the medical supply house, and were now heading even farther in a quest to hit the armory just on the south side of the river. The armory was located past several industrial malls fronting on the shore road, one side fronting the river. It was loaded with vehicles and supplies, being one of the main bases in this part of Japan. According to Shinji, the site covered some 225 acres, loaded with everything from beans to bullets, flak jackets to flame throwers. In other words, a treasure trove… If it was still intact and not completely overrun.

Moving forward, they all noticed the numbers of walking dead dropping as they left the downtown area and entered into a more industrial sector. There were still a lot of them but not the shoulder to shoulder masses they had just avoided. The crew in back settled down somewhat, and Shinji guided them into the base via a front gate left wide open. No signs of living persons, only the dead wandering about. With the base abandoned and the noise gone, most have moved off following distant noises. The truck did however bring it's own train, and Shinji had them pull into a tank barn that appeared to be pretty clear. As the truck cleared the threshold he jumped off, and hit the door switch, then knocked a couple of critters on the head with the butt of his rifle. Wolf and Saeko climbed out, as did most of the others, and again spread out in a skirmish line. Saeko climbed back in the cab.

She laid on the horn half a dozen times, while the skirmish line backed up against the wall. Standing silently, they allowed the deaders to approach the truck, and took them down one by one. In short order they had cleared the building.

"OK Shinji, what's the game plan here?" Saburo asked, keeping an eye on the various doors.

"We head up to the roof, using the ladder on the 2nd floor landing, and check out what we can. Some of us should scout round this place and see what they can find, grab it and load it. For sure we should take whatever diesel we can find. Check out those APCs too. They are generally kept full, so if need be we can siphon some from them to top off our tank."

"Sounds like a plan." Wolf said as he looked at the wall on the other side and saw a rack of cans. "Over there." He pointed them out.

Shinji continued "We will decide which buildings to hit once we get an eyeball view. I expect most of the vehicles will be gone, sortied when the shit hit the fan. The armory is over that way," as he pointed to the west, "about 5 buildings over and the ammo store is right at the end of the yard, well away from anything. I have the pass code to get into both."

"Sounds good, let's do it." Dave Cross said as he pointed at a few people and said "We'll check out the area while you guys hit the roof." He, Dave Courtney, Eriko and Tamichi Hara all started moving towards the ground floor store rooms.

Shinji led the rest of them up to the 2nd floor landing and then up the ladder to an access hatch on the roof of the tank barn. From there they walked to the edge and looked out over the compound. Looking down, they saw that the truck had dragged a couple of dozen with it before it entered the barn. Walking to the opposite side, they saw it was clear. Shinji pulled out a pair of binoculars and looked at the armory off in the distance. It too was clear. Apparently most of the base personnel had been sortied or took off. There were not that many deaders around.

"Ok, I think we should fire up the truck, and drive it around making all kinds of racket. While it is going round we take those personnel carriers and drive straight to the armory and shut down while the truck draws them. They go away and we quietly load what we need. What do you think?" he asked the others.

"Well, we all know how the truck attracts them, and it did work when I cleared the compound. As long as we keep moving, they will follow. I think it will work. But I'm not gonna risk anyone else on this little job. I'll drive it and keep them occupied while all the rest of you do the armory and the ammo dump. This process should work for both locations and as long as you keep me updated by radio, it shouldn't be a problem." Wolf mused

None of the others objected or had anything to add, so they all trooped down the ladder and back to the truck. Shinji and the rest kept going to one of the personnel carriers, and after a few minutes, Wolf heard that one start up with a jet of black smoke. He was a bit surprised to see the second one start up as well, but figured Shinji had a good reason.

Once they had warmed up, the first one moved to the barn doors and Dave Cross got out to open it. As soon as it started to open a small flood of critters came through and Dave had to run to get to the APC. Once he was aboard, they pulled out, side by side, squashing anything that got in front of them. Wolf followed, squishing some more, as they headed to the armory.

When the two APCs got there, Shinji and the other driver both backed up so their ramps were just about on top of the door to the place, and shut down. Acknowledging the radio call saying they had shut down, Wolf started driving away, laying on the horn. As always, the critters lost lock on the APCs when they shut down and started to follow Wolf and the truck. The plan appeared to be working well. Wolf told them to stay put until he was at least a couple hundred yards away before they climbed out and entered the armory.

5 minutes later Wolf had dragged the deaders well away from the armory and Shinji used his pass code to open the door. He tossed a tin can into the entrance and stood back. 3 former JSDF troops came out, shambling along, quite dead. These they took down without a qualm, and figuring it was clear, they entered the multiple room bunker. As they spread out, checking out the various cases and crates, Dave Cross screamed as a deader, trapped between two rows of crates when the can hit the floor, turned towards him, and staggered out of the alley way to sunk its teeth into his shoulder, ripping out a huge hunk of flesh.

Fast as lightening, Saburo stepped across the corridor and took its head off. Cross was already showing the signs of turning. He motioned for Saburo to end it before he turned. The swordsman stepped back, and with a single blow took off the doomed man's head. As he did so, half his crew turned away and puked. Eriko hugged her brother and cried, sobs of fear, hopelessness and shock.

Saburo gave them a couple of minutes and then told them to get on with it. They had to load the stuff they needed or Cross would have died for nothing. When Eriko kept sobbing, he slapped her twice, hard across the face. He brother Tamichi glared at him but it stopped the fountain and she got a grip after a couple of minutes of whimpering.

Shinji unlocked racks of assault rifles, pistols and some heavy squad machine guns. The piece de resistance was a pair of flame throwers. All of this they loaded into the two personnel carriers, barely making a dent in the quantities in the armory. He then hustled them all into the APCs and led the march to the ammo point farther out in an open field. Eriko mumbled about taking Dave's body back for burial but both of the military men vetoed it as they thought it would damage morale more than just telling the others he'd been taken down and was dead. As they drove, Saburo told Wolf what had happened via radio, and after some thought he'd concurred.

As they headed to the ammo dump, Wolf was slowly dragging about a hundred or so deaders in a slow circuit around the parade ground about half a mile from where the APCs now pulled up before the ammo storage. Once again the APCs backed right up to the doors and they opened up under Shinji's code.

This time they took more care in clearing the building. As it turned out the dump was clear. Shinji had figured as much, as no one worked inside the dump unless they were moving munitions in or out. There should have been guards but they either sortied, ran or died. Here the goal was ammunition for the weapons, and demolition charges and detonators. He wasn't sure what they could use the demo for but it never hurt to have the stuff to make things go kaboom in a big way. Grenades was another thing on his shopping list. Two cases of frags, two Willie Pete and two cases of smoke filled the bill and the last of the space in the APCs. Time to leave. He resealed the doors, and off they went. Last stop was to pick up another APC or two. Dave Courtney had been watching closely and figured he could do one, Saburo the other.

This they did by going to a second tank barn where there were several more parked. The area was clear, as Wolf was making quite the racket and had drawn them from all over the compound. Quickly jumping out, the two drivers made their way into the vehicles, covered by Shinji with his assault rifle. Once inside they raised the ramps and started them up. Both were fully fueled and armed so there was no need to do anything but leave the area and head back to the club compound.

Shinji called Wolf up on the VHF and told him they were ready to leave. Wolf was at the far end of the parade ground so he bumped the speed up to max and headed for the gate. When he go there they slotted him into the number two spot and the convoy of 5 headed out.

"We needed 4 APCs?" He asked over the radio.

"Ah my friend you will thank me later." Saburo came back at him.

Half an hour later they raised Wally on the radio and had him start the "music". Once the batch of critters was drawn from the gate, the convoy ran most of them over and entered the compound, where they were waved over to the pit and washed down. Only then did they open up and get out.

It was a sad crew that came out, having lost Dave Cross. That evening, after the meal, Shinji looked around at the glum crowd, and hoisted his drink. Then he said something in Japanese. He then repeated it in English.

"Fuzai no nakama...Absent Companions."

…...

Author's notes: I don't own HOTD, or any of its characters. I just get to play in their universe. All characters in this story (So far) are my own.

Reviews gratefully accepted, as long as they are constructive and non-abusive.

Anyone interested in following the progress on the real life Sabre Dance is welcome to visit my builder's blog. Just search for Sabredancing. You'll find it.

1\. Pardon my Japanese, I'm using Google Translate and we all know how hilarious that can be.


	11. Chapter 11

Sabre dancing with the Dead Ch 11.

07:45 April 17, 20xx

Day 4

Once more, daylight slowly crept into the cabin of the yacht Sabre Dance. This time the mop woke first. Kat lay there for a moment, looking up into the sleeping face of the man she had loved since high school. It had taken a while for her to admit that to herself, as she had gone through life looking for someone to match him. Finally, she'd decided to see if the spark was still there, and to try and fan it back into flames. She had written him, inviting him to visit her in Japan. He'd come about as fast as he could.

Pity the world had gone to hell in a hand cart. But given the events of the last few days, it appeared that Wolf was of the same mind. He too had gone a long time looking and had never found someone who could generate the same intense feelings he felt for Kat. Once he got the invitation, he'd been underway as soon as he could re-provision and fill his tanks. He'd pushed himself and his boat to the max, driven by an unconscious desire that had laid dormant deep within him for years.

Kat finally got up and slowly stretched the kinks out. Next she headed to the forward compartment to use the head. By the time she was finished, Wolf was up and getting dressed, carryall of toiletries sitting on the chart table. It took them less than 10 minutes to get to the clubhouse, where upon Kat disappeared into the kitchen to help prepare breakfast. Wolf headed into the shower room, where he'd leave the carryall in a locker so Kat could have hers after breakfast. He took a quick shower, figured shaving was a waste of time today and after locking up their gear, he headed out to the parking lot where the transport and the APCs were parked.

It was too early for any of the working parties to be in gear yet so he spent the time prowling around the APCs, checking them out, in preparation to having Shinji show him how to drive them and work the comm systems. He still wasn't sure why they needed 4 of them but here they were, fully armed and ready to rock. How this would alter the missions into places that were over run with critters was yet to be determined. Shinji must have a plan. Or was it Saburo? He'd been the one who said he'd thank him later.

Finally, the PA system came on and announced breakfast was ready to be served. Some of the people were already on hand to eat, while others came over by dinghy. In short order the dining room was full of people chowing down on a mix of Japanese and Western cuisine. This morning it was French toast for the Westerners. He also took a bowl of miso soup and some pickled vegetables. Looking at the natto and the way the people were eating it, he figured he'd give that a miss for now. Gross looking stuff and man, did it stink.

Breakfast done, half a dozen people stayed to help clean up, while he and most of the others went out into the parking lot to see about unloading the trailer. A couple of people got up into the trailer, and started handing down boxes of gear. As they moved forward, another couple would climb in and pass boxes to the back of the trailer. This continued until they reached the front of the unit, and the trailer was emptied.

The boxes were stacked according to the markings, with the crossbows and quarrels off to one side. Saburo asked round if anyone had any experience with them, and found a couple who did. They were assigned the unpacking and assembly of the bows. For the first go round he figured 20 ought to do it. Wolf joined that crew and they had the bows (which looked to be of excellent quality) assembled and checked out in short order. Each bow came with a mount under the prod, for 5 quarrels. As each bow was completed with its quarrels it was put aside.

In the mean time Eriko and her brother were rigging up a bunch of targets set against the Tsunami wall, using hay bales used to protect the shrubs and trees from the winter cold. This they covered with slabs of insulating foam left over from the club expansion that had recently been completed. As they were doing this, another group was checking out boxes of clothing, pulling the packing lists from their plastic pouches on the side of the boxes and making notes on what they contained. From what Wolf could make out, they were finding a lot of useful items for later in the year when the summer weather arrived. Kat would be happy as a clam with some of this loot. Not to mention the several cases of unmentionables that they had also grabbed. Having one set of undies was a royal pain in the ass for her. As for outer clothing, he figured the slops bag would have to do until the weather got warm enough for the summer gear. Give it another couple of weeks.

As he was finishing up the last crossbow he'd worked on, Wally came up to talk to him.

"Hey Wolf, got some news." he grinned, "We aren't the only ones still alive. I finally got some coherent transmissions from the bunch on the north side of the river, and also a couple of hits coming from the airport out there."

"How are they making out?" Wolf asked.

"According to the RTO up north, they have hunkered down behind rows of wrecked cars, trucks and buses. They seem to be holding their own." Wally paused before he spoke again. "The ones at the airport are in pretty shitty shape. The deaders keep coming in ever increasing numbers and they are running out of ammo and bodies to fight with. They lose people in every attack as the deaders break into a new area. They are retreating into an ever smaller space. They also mentioned some odd behavior from the deaders."

"Oh? How so?" Wolf wondered.

"The guy I got hold of said that some of them can now run. As in really fast. They ran into them several times and lost a few people because of that." Wally said.

"Shit, That's not good" Wolf told him.

"No it ain't. It's gonna make getting supplies just that much harder and more dangerous. I wonder if maybe we should be looking at moving on to someplace better suited for long term survival." Wally thought out loud.

"Hmm. It's a thought. What do you have in mind Wally?" Wolf asked him.

"Well all we are doing now is picking at the carcass of the city. We can get supplies but only at risk to ourselves. For now that is OK I guess, but at some point the risks will begin to outweigh the rewards. We lost Dave yesterday, but got a lot of arms and ammo. Pretty pricey stuff if you ask me. And to go and try to hit the medical supply joint is going to be a night mare." Wally explained. "It might be a better idea to try and find someplace where we can actually grow stuff and what not. An island off the coast someplace with a bit of arable land on it. Someplace we can clear the deaders out of and not have to worry as much about them."

"I agree with you for the most part. But for now we are in half decent shape. We can hold here for a while or we can cast off and head to the other side of the river where they are hanging on. Better organization there for sure. At least that's one option." Wolf started pacing back n forth for a bit. "But we need more info before we can even mention this to anyone. Try and get that RTO on the horn and find out just what they are holding. If they are holding all the way to the waterfront it might be a good idea to move."

"Can do, Wolf" Wally said over his shoulder as he turned and headed back to his boat and all it's radio gear.

Runners? What the hell was that all about? So far they only had to deal with slow sluggish critters, but if the buggers started to sprint while attacking, that was gonna make life a whole lot more interesting. No fun, but certainly interesting. He headed over to where Shinji and Saburo had the first crossbow course going. Not that there was much to teach besides cock, load and how to aim. The bows were pretty powerful, most of the bolts were going just about through the hay bales. From what he could see though, they were hitting the targets pretty well, so head shots might just be doable.

"So Saburo, what did you mean when you said I'd thank you for picking up 4 APCs?" He asked the JASDF Captain.

Saburo looked at him and started to explain. "It will make foraging much easier. You saw how well the truck worked at dragging the undead away from where we were getting ready to enter the armory? With 4 APCs and the truck we can make sure that we draw them away with noise. One or two APCs driving round with the driver yelling over the PA system will certainly draw them away from the truck and other APCs that park and shut down right up close to what ever it its we are about to try and enter."

"Yeah, I can see where that would work better with 4 instead of 2. Question is what mission next? Any thoughts on that? Wolf asked.

I'm thinking we need to make up some disposable noise makers. Something we can plant, and turn on from a distance that will keep the deaders occupied. Your idea with the car horns and batteries is sound. I think we should try an auto parts outlet for horns and batteries as well as strip cars in the area. And we need lots of cable to set up distant switches." Saburo noted. Let's go into the club and see where we can get the stuff we need.

The two of them headed into the club and got the map and phone book from Elaine. Sure enough there were several parts outlets along the shore road, and a cable and wire warehouse not too far away. Now came the question of who would come along. With Dave Cross' death, the people were kind of leery of going out of the compound. That would have to be dealt with before it became epidemic. The less people who helped, the harder and more dangerous each mission would become, not to mention the unfairness of having only a few risk their lives to feed and supply the others.

"I think we need to speak to everyone about this come lunch time." Wolf noted.

"I agree, we need to get more people involved in scavenging missions. Losing Dave yesterday will make that more difficult. We have to convince them of the necessity of scavenging, that we really are on their own here and need to pitch in." Saburo replied. "We will speak to them after we eat. I'm for doing a fast mission today to one of the parts places, and the cable outlet. They are both very close and we should be able to do both before dark. Then tomorrow we can wire up the horns and put some of them out a good distance away from the gate to draw the deaders away when we want to go out."

That decided they both went back to where the crossbows were being tested and trained. Both of they had a go, and did well. Head shots would not be a problem at near ranges and the silence was almost complete. All that could be heard was a thunk or twang as the bolts left the bow. Cocking them was also silent, unless you counted the grunting some of the less fit shooters were making as they tried to re-cock the 150 lb bows after shooting.

"I guess we are going to have to see about some upper body strength training here. It's not much use to have a bow to shoot if you need someone else to cock it every time." Dave Courtney mentioned as he watched some of the others try to cock one. Yamato was having a difficult time as were several others.

"Yeah, not much call to lift weights as a house wife or a teacher. I see our city manager is struggling to get his cocked again. Don't take no strength to push a pencil does it?' Wally chuckled as he came up to talk to the two of them. "I got hold of that RTO again. He is part of a mishmash of units made from small groups of surviving troops. His unit is the 37th Regiment, 3rd Infantry Division. They also have some bits of the 1st Tank Battalion, and some loggies tossed in for good measure. Apparently they are holding on to the shipyards which have been isolated by blocking all the bridges leading to the yards. So far they are holding OK, and are in touch with other units, including an SAT police unit and other cops on the Airport Island. His CO said that if we want to come over, come by boat."

"Well we'll keep that in mind. How are they making out for supplies?" Saburo asked him.

"Not too bad apparently. Their supply trains managed to keep from getting over run." Wally replied.

Over at the clubhouse, Fujiko appeared at the door and rang the bronze bell bolted to the wall. Lunch was ready.

Wally, Wolf and Saburo headed over to the dining room along with the others. So far it looked as if they have made a good dent in unloading the truck, and cataloging all the items of clothing. They would continue after lunch, but Wolf and Saburo wanted to have a go at the parts outlets.

Lunch consisted of soup, salad, rice and a meat or tofu dish. Not bad but Wolf would have killed for a burger and fries right about now. As people were finishing up, Saburo stood up and asked them to wait for a moment as he explained their next mission. As expected there were not many takers, to which he commented about the fairness of all hands working. Yamato was especially against it, and started going on again about how the "government" would soon have things in hand and that it was their decision to go out into the city for supplies that had led to Dave Cross' death. He said that had they stayed in the compound, Cross would still be alive and he was certainly not going to volunteer and he advised others to do the same and stay put.

Saburo put paid to that argument by simple advising everyone that when the food started getting scarce, they'd all pitch in or starve. He wasn't going to risk his or anyone else's life to feed those who wouldn't share the risk. After some looking back and forth at each other, several people volunteered and they got the numbers they needed to carry out the mission. Someone called out that Yamato should take his boat and head for the other side of the river, as that is where the "government" appeared to be making it's stand. Surprisingly, Yamato said he'd stay put. Someone else, who knew the owners of the boat Yamato was on, mentioned that it wasn't his boat anyway, and that they had not seen the owner or his family since before the epidemic started up. Yamato looked kinda guilty at that and said that he'd been invited to go for a boat ride and got here first. He was waiting on the owner, a "friend of his" from work. Things went down hill for him after that when the same someone said bullshit and called him a liar. The owner, a Mr Yamaguchi, didn't work for the city at all. Finally, Yamato, furious, turned and stomped out of the club and returned to his boat to sulk.

Shinji and Saburo got the mission organized and ready to roll in half an hour, taking 3 of the APCs and the Komatsu. Wolf would be driving it as usual and would be acting as drag, along with one of the other APCs. Drag was the term they'd decided on to describe the leading away of the deaders. The other two would park up close to the supply outlet and then clear the building and grab horns, cables, terminals, batteries and chargers.

Putting Wally up on the wall, they let him start the noise and draw the critters away from the gate. 10 minutes later they were on their way. This time the mission went as planned, great care being taken in clearing the outlet. They had only to knock off 3 critters inside before they rolled the two APCs up to the ground level loading bays. The 6 men then loaded up all the stuff they needed and pulled out to meet up with the Komatsu and the other APC. From there they moved on to the cable warehouse, which was wide open. The Drag crews motored around the building and the pickup people backed into the loading docks. As with Takagi's warehouse, they did a sweep of the much smaller place, killed off the half dozen deaders inside, and then loaded spools of cable into the APCs while two of the group kept high sentry on top of the APCs in case some deaders stumbled by.

Once loaded, they joined up with the drag group who'd taken their crowd about 6 blocks away and then doubled back as fast as possible. Here the Komatsu was at a disadvantage as the APCs were much faster. Still, there was no way in hell that the deaders could make 25 miles per hour, let alone the speeds the APCs were capable of. All together now, the 4 vehicles headed back to the club area, quite pleased with themselves.

They were about half a mile from the club when things went from bad to worse.

Author's notes: I don't own HOTD, or any of its characters. I just get to play in their universe. All characters in this story (So far) are my own.

Reviews gratefully accepted, as long as they are constructive and non-abusive.

RTO: Radio Telephone Operator. A unit's radio man.

Loggies: Logistical troops. Clerks, warehouse people, and other supply service types. Also known as REMFs, Rear Echelon Mother F-kers

Anyone interested in following the progress on the real life Sabre Dance is welcome to visit my builder's blog. Just search for Sabredancing. You'll find it.


	12. Chapter 12

Sabre dancing with the Dead Ch 12.

18:34 April 17, 20xx

Day 4

The convoy of 3 APCs and the truck were on their way back to the compound after two successful supply missions. Time to get home and secure for the night. The Komatsu, with Wolf at the wheel was slotted in as number 2 in the line, and they were boogieing right along at 25mph. Wolf had already radioed for someone to start the diversionary noise making to get the gate cleared of critters. Everything was going according to plan.

And then things went pear shaped in the blink of an eye. Suddenly, the truck's instrument panel went dead and the engine died. At the same instant, a second sun burst forth high and to the east, back over the hills surrounding Tokanosu City. Since they were heading along the shore road, the second sun lit them up from one side, as the setting sun lit them from the other. Very confusing. As the truck coasted to a stop, Wolf snatched up the radio to check with Wally and found it dead. Then he noticed all the street lights, and traffic lights were also dead. Beginning to get an idea, he glanced down at his digital watch. It too was dead. Gradually the realization of what had just happened came to him.

As a doomer from way back when, It seemed pretty obvious to him what had just happened. Someone, somewhere had launched a nuclear warhead up to a very high altitude, say 80-100 miles up and detonated it. The immediate result was a burst of electromagnetic energy of immense power. As the burst radiated outwards, anything electronic that it touched died instantly. Control systems for power generators, radios, wrist watches, cell phones, computers, and electronic dashboards all used integrated circuitry to work. All those IC chips were now just so much crystalline garbage. Their ability to function had forever died when the radiation overloaded them and fried them to a crisp. Everything shut down. Permanently.

The only way to fix something electronic now would be to replace the parts that fried. In some cases, this would be a cinch if the parts were on hand and OK. An alternator for instance, nowadays had the diodes on a removable card. If you had a new card and the windings weren't burnt out, you could fix it. In other cases, not a hope in hell as every new part put in to repair a damaged board had to be balanced with all the other parts or the board wouldn't work. A radio for instance. Each part of the circuit had to balance against the other parts in terms of resistance, capacitance and impedance. With all the test gear cooked as well there was no way to tune in a circuit to make it work. Every standard component out there had a tolerance of 10% regarding its value. So for instance a resister could be labeled 100 ohm, and run between 90 and 110 ohms. Really good ones were within 5% of the marked value. There in lay the problem. As said, not a chance in hell.

The APC behind him pulled up along side. Dave Courtney climbed out of the top hatch and hollered over. "Are you OK? What happened?

The truck just died. So did my radio and my watch. Do you have radio still? Wolf called back to him.

Dave ducked down inside, and popped up a few seconds later. "Yeah, the set is lit, and I'm getting static and some faint voice but I can't understand it, it's garbled and in Japanese I think."

"Yeah, See if you can get Wally on the radio. I suspect everything is dead now. Wolf grumbled.

"You'd best jump over here man, them critters is getting close." Dave told him.

Wolf looked back up the road and sure enough there were a couple of dozen shuffling along. Time to bail out. He grabbed his coat and the rest of his gear and jumped from the boarding steps over to the top of the APC. "Ok, lets head for the gate. That'll be our next problem. In hind sight, maybe smearing all those stairs might not have been such a bright idea after all." He said, as Dave put the APC in gear and started to move again.

Minutes later they were outside the compound. Wally was standing up on the platform and hollered over that the gate was dead. They'd have to use the manual override, which would take a while. He wanted to know how they planned on keeping the critters away from the gate.

Wolf told all the drivers to shut down. Then he told Wally to get a couple of horns and batteries and place them on the wall at the far end of the compound. That was a couple hundred yards away from the gate at this end. "Wally, once you get the stuff up onto the wall, hook up a horn and let her rip. As soon as they all move over there you can open the gate a bit so we can get in. If we do it right, they won't be able to do anything before we get the gate closed again. We'll have to leave the APCs outside for now until we figure out a way to get power back to the gate. Just keep that horn blaring, OK?"

Then he looked over at the other two APCs where several heads were showing above the over head hatches. "Ok everyone, absolute silence now. No noise at all. Let Wally drag them over to the other end of the wall. Once they are way the hell over there, they'll open the gate a little bit and we will _didi_ right quickly and quietly. Grab you gear and some of the horns and wire as you go. Got it?"

The others all nodded agreement, and settled down to wait. The deaders by this time were within 50 yards of the vehicles. By the time they actually got to them, their interest was waning as there was no longer any noise to draw them and they milled about waiting on other noises to draw them. They could see Wally and a couple of others now sitting on top of the wall down at the far end, hurriedly hooking up a horn using jumper cables from the battery on the ground to the horn up on the wall. Wally then took one of the cable clamps and connected the circuit and the horn started blaring. Very quickly the deaders turned in that direction and started to shuffle off in that direction.

In the mean while, several people had climbed up onto the stairs at various points and were picking off deaders one at a time. It wasn't really to kill them all, but rather to see if they could actually hit them and kill them with the cross bows. So far that experiment seemed to be working. A head shot would take them down easily and as long as the distance wasn't too great and the bow man could compensate for the lurching motion, they were dropping.

Shinji waved the bow men off the wall after half a dozen deaders had gone down, wanting to save the bolts for later. All they could do was wait til the mass had made it down to the far end. That took about 10 minutes of shuffling and lurching. The deaders all pooled around the wall right under the horn. Wally had by that time dropped off the wall as the racket was deafening. He popped up on the stairs by their gate, checked to see if any of the critters were still within earshot and then signaled someone inside to open the gate. This was done by turning a very large hand wheel attached to a gear train that was powerful enough to shift the door which weighed in at a ton and a half or so. It took time though, and the fear was that they might not get it closed again if the critters came back for some reason. So far that wasn't a problem.

Seeing how slow the gate was moving, Wally had a couple more people latch onto the hand wheel and help. This got the gate moving about half as fast as it did under power. Wolf wondered if they could get a generator to power the gate but suspected it wasn't running on anything less than 240volts. Maybe, maybe not. They would have to check out the system and then see where they could scrounge up a generator. In the mean time the gate had opened up about 5 feet, and he signaled everyone to un-ass the APCs and get into the compound right quickly. Several of the crew took boxes of horns with them and came back out to grab batteries and more cable. Shinji kept an eye on the critters in the fading light, who showed no sign of being aware of the movement by the vehicles. It took 10 minutes to get everything out of the carriers and seal them up again, then Wolf and Shinji were the last ones in the gate. It was already half closed by the time they dropped down and squeezed through.

Once everyone was inside and the gate was closed, Wolf gathered Shinji, Saburo and Wally together off to one side of the crowd now milling around in the parking lot. The sun was down now, the light was fading fast, and the darkness would only be broken by a half moon.

He started off the discussion, asking if they knew what had happened.

Saburo replied "I suspect an EMP pulse from a nuclear detonation. That would be consistent with what I observed and can see the effects of." He turned to look at Wally, their "communications" expert and asked him if he still had any functioning radios on his boat. With that Wally took off to check.

"Shinji, what do you think?" Saburo asked.

"I agree, it was a pulse. My digital watch is dead, and I don't see any electrical items working at all. My cell phone is also dead. It was fully charged last night." Shinji replied, showing them his dead watch. Wolf also held up his which was also dark.

"Ok then, What do we do about it? In terms of our survival I mean. I know that this is a permanent thing now. We have been effectively pushed back to the 19th century, if not further. Plus we are in the middle of a world wide pandemic or what ever you want to call this mess with the dead coming back to life. We need to figure out how to survive without the advantages we had." Wolf asked the others.

Looking over at the club house, he saw Kat come walking out the door and make a beeline right to him.

He warned the others. "Oh Shit, looks like our first problem is coming to us, guys!"

"Hey have you guys got any idea how we can cook without electricity? Or water? We have dinner ready for tonight but without the stoves we are gonna be eating raw food tomorrow morning." She asked them.

"No idea at the moment Kat, that's what we were discussing. What ever we do has to be a long term solution. The power won't be coming on again in our lifetimes as far as I'm concerned." Wolf told her.

"What happened anyway? Is power out all over the city now? Or just here?" She wondered.

"No, We figure the power is off all over the country. Someone popped an EMP burst and zorched everything." Wolf replied.

"You're kidding right? Isn't that science fiction? Movie stuff?" Tamichi Hara asked as he walked over to the group.

"Unfortunately, it's very real. We are back to where we were in the 19th century as far as our living standards are concerned. Right now our immediate problem is how to get fresh water, cook our food and resupply those items. Got any ideas?" Saburo noted.

Shinji scratched his chin, and said "I think we can get water back at my base. There are a couple of water bowsers sitting in one of the tank barns. They should still run as they are shielded. All the vehicles there should still run. Our APCs do. We can also get a field kitchen unit and tow it back here. That will do for the near term, until fuel runs out. I expect eventually we'll be back to wood burning or coal if we can find any."

Tamichi told them about some propane outdoor cooking gear that the club used for barbeques and such during the summer months, which was in storage. He'd pull it out first thing in the am. Propane wise he figured they had several large tanks of it, having just received their first shipment for the summer season. That might take care of the cooking for now. If he set it up under the awning over the outdoor deck, cooking would be possible in all weather.

"We should get everyone to check the boats they are on too. Most of them will likely have propane or alcohol stoves on board, which will do for them to cook on. Again, until the fuel runs out. We should tell them to save it for emergencies. I like Tamichi's idea. Communal cooking is still the best way to get maximum bang for our buck." Wolf told them. "In the mean time I suggest we get to dinner before it ends up cold. It'll be the last decent meal for a while, I'm thinking."

Turning to the crowd, Shinji waved them all into the clubhouse which was now very dark inside. The only light came from the emergency lights and from a dozen storm lanterns someone had dug out and lit. These were placed on various tables and at the serving station. As the people filed in and grabbed some food, they asked the leadership group what they were going to do now. Saburo told them to eat first and they would discuss it after dinner.

Dinner was a sombre affair, everyone quietly conversing with the nearest person, enjoying what they knew now would be their last decent meal for some time. Word of what had happened to the power spread among them like wildfire after Tamichi had told them of his conversation with the 3 leaders.

Dinner concluded, everyone sat up, wanting to know where they were going to go from here. Obviously food, and water were of primary concerns. Shelter not so much as everyone had their boat to sleep in. In fact some of them had already moved upwards to larger quarters as they took over boats that had not been claimed by anyone and had been swept for critters.

Saburo, Wolf and Shinji moved to the bar area, and started to explain just exactly what the situation was, and how it would not be remedied in the foreseeable future. Wolf next asked Wally what the status was of his radio gear. That was bad news, all his gear was smoked. The boat he was in was fibreglass, and did nothing to protect any electronics. So they had no more communications with other groups, unless they could find a working set somewhere. Shinji asked Saeko to make a note to check the Takagi warehouse paperwork to see if there was any radio gear in there that might have survived. Electronics sealed in a steel container might be OK, as the can acted as a Faraday cage and negated the EMP pulse.

The plan to move the propane summer cooking gear out to the patio for cooking was discussed as was the possibility of getting the water bowsers from the JSDF base. Kat and Fujiko asked that everyone on the kitchen crew appear in the kitchen to assist in moving their cooking set up out to the patio. By the time they were ready with that, Tamichi should have the propane gear set up and they could prepare a late breakfast. They also made note of the fact that without cooling, their food supplies would start going bad in short order. So fresh food would be cooked up and eaten as soon as was possible and the meal time diet might look a bit strange for a while.

By 8pm they'd pretty much exhausted any items that needed to be covered, and Saburo told them all to head to their respective boats and crash for the night. Without light, they had just regressed to an older lifestyle in that they would be early to bed and even earlier to rise.

Wolf collected Kat and bid everyone good night. They would check Sabre Dance out in the morning and see if any of their electronics had survived the pulse. That decided, they cast off the dinghy and headed out to the moorings. Above them, the half moon shone on a darkened city, lit only by sporadic fires that still burned.

-Author's notes: I don't own HOTD, or any of its characters. I just get to play in their universe. All characters in this story (So far) are my own.

Reviews gratefully accepted, as long as they are constructive and non-abusive.

Anyone interested in following the progress on the real life Sabre Dance is welcome to visit my builder's blog. Just search for Sabredancing. You'll find it.


	13. Chapter 13

Sabredancing with the dead Ch 13

Tokonosu, April 18 20xx

Day 5.

0745

Kat and Wolf were up with the sun, and whipped together a simple breakfast from ship's stores. The coffee machine was a bust though, no power at the moment so it was tea with a shot or two of rum, sugar and lemon. (Both of them couldn't stand milk in tea, which made it easier to make up a full pot in one go.) Breakfast consisted of scrambled eggs, and sandwiches made with the remaining fresh meat slices from their first meal aboard. Kat figured on helping Wolf do the systems checks, letting the others get organized with the new cooking arrangements before she headed back up to help them. In the mean time, it was essential that they figure out what systems on Sabre Dance were good and which were bad.

Breakfast concluded, they got going. To that end, the first thing he wanted to do was an electrical check, starting with the diesel. EMP had no effect on items within a Faraday cage, which by definition was a metal box. Being as SD was a steel box, albeit with a few openings, he was praying that his electronics would be OK. He'd always made a point of disconnecting any long leads such as antenna and the mast head units, so maybe he'd be lucky.

"OK babe, here goes nothing!" he said as he climbed into the cockpit and set the throttle. He turned the key and the appropriate lights came on, and after a bit he hit the start button. The engine spun over and then fired, steadying into its normal warm up rhythm

"WOOO HOOOO!" He hollered as Kat gave him the thumbs up. She turned to check the ammeter on the panel and studied it for a moment, then turned to him and gave the thumbs down. It looked like the alternator diodes were gone. He ran the engine until it was warmed up, and then switched it off. Climbing back down into the cabin, he opened a locker up forward and pulled out a couple of battery maintenance solar panels. Taking them topside along with his multimeter, which still worked, he was happy to see that they had both survived. This gave him some hope that the larger panel shoved under the cockpit floor might also have survived. If so, he had the power he needed. Without that big panel, keeping the cooler running would require some fine balancing.

He and Kat then carefully pulled out the big panel, a 200 watt panel that was about 5 foot by 2 and a half. He hadn't got the frame work built yet, having only just purchased the panel in Hawaii, but they took the panel out and laid it on the cabin top forward of the mast on a couple of blocks of wood. Wolf connected his multimeter to it, and was again ecstatic to see it had survived. It didn't take long to connect some heavy wire to the output leads, seal the joint with butyl tape and lead them back to the cockpit. Unscrewing the panel he'd already built in for the purpose, he connected the leads to the terminals within. He took some tape and wrapped the wires where they entered the panel and then screwed it shut again. Kat looked up at him from the companion way, and gave him thumbs up; the panel was feeding into the controller and was charging the battery bank.

Next thing he checked was the depth sounder. Being entirely within the hull, it had survived and showed 37 feet of water beneath the keel. He couldn't try the sumlog without moving the boat but he suspected it was working too. He reached up and grabbed the data cable from the mast head unit that fed wind speed and direction into his instruments and plugged it into the server. No joy there, the mast head unit was packed full of comparators, transistors and ttl chips. It was toast. Now he looked at the VHF radio. He left the power feed on it but always disconnected the antenna. Now he pulled the cable and coupling out of its stowage slot and screwed it onto the connector at the back of the radio, and hit the power switch. All the appropriate lights came on, and he heard static. He fiddled with it for a while, calling on 16 to see if anyone responded. That dog didn't bark. He reached down and opened up a steel locker and pulled out the hand held VHF. He handed Kat the mic and rowed back to the dinghy dock with the hand held and called up Sabre Dance. Kat came right back at him, so both sets appeared to be working fine. He gave Wally a call but got no response.

Last but not least he went back below and plugged the leads and antenna into the stereo system. The lights came, but there was nothing on AM or FM. Then he pulled out a flash drive, popped it in and smiled when Roy Orbison started belting out Pretty Woman. Even Kat was smiling. She had her own collection of flash drives and there were always the earphones. She mouthed the words "old fart" at him as he grooved to the tune. He just kept on grinning.

All things considered, Sabre Dance had weathered the EMP pretty well. Unlike the Tupperware boats (which he suspected would all be fried), most of his systems were protected enough by her steel hull to not burn out. The alternator could probably be repaired if he had the right diodes in his box of solid state bits. That would remain to be seen, if not he did have a spare, along with a spare starter and isolation box. He'd paid the stiff price for duplicates willingly, figuring having one fry in some far away lagoon was a possibility. He had stored them in a completely steel locker, along with some other things of electronic nature like the solid state repair parts. The mast head unit would have to come down and be taken apart but for now he could live without it. He doubted it could be fixed but SD was the first boat he'd had with a wind vane, so it wasn't a critical item. Tell tales always worked, power or not.

By noon, they had checked every system, so they headed up to the clubhouse to see what was going on. Kat went off to assist with lunch while Wolf got with Saeko to see what other useful things could be had from the Takagi warehouse.

Within 10 minutes Kat was back to update him on the kitchen. "Wolf, we already have problems. They got the propane gear set up for breakfast but we are just about out of drinking water. We only have half a dozen cases of bottled water for the vending machines and then we're out completely."

"Saeko, any chance of bottled water in the warehouse?" Wolf asked as he turned to the former warehouse manager.

"No, I don't recollect any water, imported or otherwise. Our city freshwater is taken from the river. Most of our bottled water in the city comes from two or three distributors who bring it down from the hills up north somewhere. Sorry" she replied.

"Ok this is problem number one... Let me get with the others and see about a trip to the base for those water bowsers. Quick like, before someone else gets the same idea." Wolf told Kat as he turned towards where Shinji and Saburo were working on something with Eriko and Tamichi.

Hi guys. What are you up to? He asked them.

"We're debating which is easier. Dig latrines or haul water from the dock to the washrooms. Eriko figures we cant' dig deep enough to make it worth while, and Tamichi figures humping buckets one at a time, as needed by someone will do. We have to get the toilets working again. Some one has already used them and flushed, but never got water to refill the ones they used." Shinji filled him in.

"Well tell everyone to grab a bucket full before using the facilities. Its only about 60 feet from the dinghy dock to the washrooms. Everyone will have to carry their own. Wolf said as he thumped his fist on the picnic table they were sitting at. "That will damn well work. I can't see people wanting to use a latrine, even if we could dig it deep enough. No worries about the water being contaminated by the floating dead, its salt and won't be used for cooking or drinking anyway. I wouldn't even use it for washing. It's not clean enough." Wolf told them. "But we need to stay on top of the sanitation aspects of this for sure."

The others nodded in agreement, debate finished. Eriko and Tamichi went off to get buckets and put them by the dock for everyone to use.

That taken care of, Wolf got to the water issue. "Guys, we have a bigger problem than flush toilets right now. We are almost out of drinking water already. We need to get those bowsers ASAP. What we have won't last more than a day."

"Agreed, lets get some people together for this. While we are at the base I can pick up a couple of radio sets for communications with the force north of us. Plus we can use it as a base radio to communicate with the APCs." Shinji suggested.

"Wait a minute guys, we have to figure out how we're going to do this. We want the bowsers inside the compound which means opening the gate wide and doing it with man power. We need a plan for this." Wolf noted.

"Yeah you're right. We need to keep the deaders away. Sound draws them away well enough as we saw last night but we shut down and went dead silent for a spell. Coming back with 3 or 4 extra vehicles is going to be much harder to orchestrate."Saburo noted

"How about this. When we come back, the column turns left up the second last street and then across to the last street by the gate. This way everybody is lined up on the gate. The APCs swing out of line and point north down the Shore Road facing the crowd of deaders, parking just off to the side of the gate. Everyone shuts down." Wolf paused to think a bit more. Then he continued. "Wally starts the music, and when they are far enough away we crank the gate open and the bowsers start up and immediately enter. Meanwhile if the critters hear the bowsers, and start heading back to the gate, we use the APCs to attract them by starting up and meeting them half way. Once the bowsers are in, the gate closes, and we loop round again. Then we park side by side in front of the gate like we did last night, shut down, let Wally draw them again and we scoot inside humping the gear as we go."

"That sounds like a workable plan." Shinji and Saburo both agreed.

"OK lets get going." Saburo replied.

They walked over to the crowd gathering for lunch and asked for volunteers for the supply run, pointing out that the water was just about gone and they needed to get more or be in deep trouble. Several people stepped up, mostly the same crew from the day before, with a couple new faces. Wally and the gate crew were briefed in as to how this was going to go, asked a couple of questions and they were good to go. Kat in the mean time organized a dozen crossbow armed people to watch from the top of the stairs again when the trucks came back. Just in case.

Saburo also pointed out the new sanitary rules, get water before you flush or end up on KP for a week. A few people grumbled about it, so Shinji asked them how they'd like to dig a latrine pit with shovels and crap outside. That put paid to any grumbling.

"OK, Wally, get ready to start the racket in about 10 minutes. We need to get ourselves organized at the gate first." Wolf told him, and headed off to get ready.

10 minutes later Wally climbed up the steps and hooked up the horn which immediately started pulling critters to that location. Tamichi had gotten him a set of headphones, so his hearing wasn't taking the pounding it had yesterday. The group by the gate kept an eye on him and he soon signaled them to open the gate and move to the APCs.

This was done in short order, and the gate cranked shut again. The crews manned the APCs and crossed fingers and toes that they would start. Sure enough the hardened vehicles had not suffered any ill effects from the burst and fired up as normal. The radios were checked and also found to be functional, so they turned round and in a column headed north along the shore front road to the JSDF base.

As they moved along, deaders came out from all sides. Some ended up as grease beneath the wheels but most were just too slow to do more than stumble after them until the sound died away in the distance and they lost interest. The trip to the base was without incident, and they followed Shinji's APC to the tank barn which held the water bowsers. He had checked to make sure his crew members were good to go on the trucks, and he parked beside them and shut down. Meanwhile the others drove slowly round and started dragging the deaders away from the area.

Once they had cleared the area of walking corpses, Shinji opened up the rear ramp of his vehicle and the crew disbursed to the water bowsers, climbing in and locking the doors. These were standard heavy duty trucks with a 5000 liter tank mounted on the frame behind the cab. There were 5 of them, but they only had 3 drivers.

Shinji got on the radio and had one of the other APCs swing by and drop two more drivers. In short order the 5 trucks were running and in a line behind the APC. Shinji called the other two APCs and led them all over to the supply depot. Once there he and Wolf parked and shut down, while the rest of them drove round dragging deaders away. The depot wasn't locked or anything so they quietly entered and cleared the building. There were a couple of critters in there, but they had no problem killing off the two and set about gathering radio sets, both base sets and individual hand sets.

It took them just over an hour to get the gear they wanted, load it and get ready to roll. They formed up in a column with the other APC and the bowsers and headed back to the compound. Now came the tricky part. Getting them all inside and closing the gate before they pulled any deaders in with them.

As they came to the end of the Shore road, they pulled up the second last street to the side. One block up they crossed over to the last road which was in line with the gate they used. The APCs took lead, and did as planned, turning back north on the Shore Road and parking side by side. The bowser came up behind and parked nose to tail with the lead truck no more than a foot away from the gate. Looking up at the wall way down at the other end of the compound, they saw Wally waiting and signaled him to plug in the horn. Sure enough the critters they had dragged with them headed over to visit Wally's horn for a while.

Once they had all crowded together under the horn, Wally signaled back to the gate crew and they feverishly cranked it open, just wide enough for the bowsers. Those trucks fired up right away and trundled into the compound as fast as possible. Up on the steps, Kats' crossbow crew stood to, ready in case the critters came back this way. A Nothing doing with that. The horn was so loud they couldn't hear anything at all.

Wally kept the horn going, and signaled the APC crews to unass right then and there, as he had the critters firmly in hand. A few shambled down the last road, cutting the corner and heading to the horn. Others also appeared from the second road and farther afield, being dragged by the horn. By this time Wally had a hundred or so stacked up under his position.

In the mean time, several people came out of the gate to assist in the offloading, which went very quickly. With the APCs buttoned up and all the cargo offloaded, Shinji motioned Wally to cut the horn. He then hopped off the last APC and through the gate. A critter no one had seen lunged at him from behind the last APC and almost got him, but Kat's crew skewered it a half dozen times including two head shots and it went down like a sack of potatoes.

Water problem temporarily solved, Wolf wondered what would happen next. Sanitation was still a big issue, with no showers, and no running water to wash with. The harbor water might do in a pinch but as he'd already noted, he wasn't too impressed with that idea. At least it didn't have a lot of oil or gasoline floating on the surface. Salt water showers were no fun at the best of times, and grungy water just made it worse. The more he thought about it, the more untenable this location was becoming. It sure seemed like Wally had the right idea. No power, no water, no food. Not a situation given to long term survival. He wondered what crisis would pop up next.

-Author's notes: I don't own HOTD, or any of its characters. I just get to play in their universe. All characters in this story (So far) are my own.

Reviews gratefully accepted, as long as they are constructive and non-abusive.

Anyone interested in following the progress on the real life Sabre Dance is welcome to visit my builder's blog. Just search for Sabredancing. You'll find it.


	14. Chapter 14

Sabredancing with the dead Ch 14

Tokonosu, April 19 20xx

Day 6.

0745

Wolf woke up to a gray gloomy April day. Kat lay with her back to him, snoring lightly. After a while her breathing changed as she woke up, and stretched. They lay there for a while, enjoying the closeness of each other. A light rain pattered on the overhead and neither of them really wanted to get out of bed but they had things to do. So, half an hour later both of them were in the dinghy heading to the dock, ready to put in another day at the survival game, here in this land of the walking dead.

His sleep had been uneasy, caused by subconscious worries about food, water and other things they needed to make a go of it in this location. His thoughts dwelt on what Wally had said a couple of days ago, and the more he pondered these questions, the more he came round to Wally's idea of moving. The compound was pretty much critter proof, and they had shelter but food and water were going to be an ongoing battle, especially the water aspect. Tanker trucks of fresh drinking water weren't just laying round to be grabbed. Food might last in the warehouses for a year or more but water was going to be a cast iron bitch to keep in supply. Shelter was another issue. You couldn't live on the boats over the winter. Not without a good power supply for heating. From what he could tell, everyone was living in factory built fiberglass boats, and none of them were insulated. His was, but without a large supply of kerosene he had no way to heat her up. Fortunately it was early spring, so at least they were good for 6 months or so in that respect.

The problem was simple. Where could they go to, and have all the resources they needed? One choice was to head over to where the JSDF had hunkered down in the shipyard area. More people there to spread out the work of surviving but again, they would be relying on scavenging. A second idea was to head out to an island off the coast and clear it. But arable land in this part of Japan was pretty scarce, and most islands were treed to the max with little cleared land. Possibility number 3 was an enclosed farming village or such, which he had no idea of where to find one. It appeared that for the moment they were stuck.

Breakfast was getting to be pretty sparse as the fresh food was almost gone. He finally tried natto, and while the stink was pretty bad, it turned out that the taste wasn't nearly as nasty as he'd thought. It was tolerable. Just barely. Talking with Kat and the other kitchen people, it appeared that they were OK for staples for another week or so. He'd have to see about a scavenging mission to a grocery wholesale outlet or something in the near future.

Water was still the biggest worry. How to get fresh water with no power or filter mechanisms? He had a desalinator unit on board but it drew a lot of power in order to make a few gallons. It wasn't a large unit, as he generally sailed alone and running it once a month for a couple of hours was sufficient to fill his tanks. Even then he used it sparingly, preferring to top up on potable water in the various harbors he visited.

Thinking about his desalinator got him thinking about the two ships over at the Takagi warehouse docks. While diesel powered, all ocean going ships carried a distillation unit on board for crew needs. He got to wondering if it were possible to use one of them to supply water, at least for as long as the fuel held out. He remembered that one of them had the gangway up and appeared to be unoccupied by critters while the other one was seen to be infested. He thought about how to get aboard the one with its gangway up. It was a long climb from dock level to deck level but might be doable. Even better if there was still crew aboard that could lower the gangway for them.

He thought about climbing up onto the tsunami wall to look if there were any signs of life on that ship but then remembered that it was on the opposite side of the warehouse and wouldn't be visible. Still it was worth investigating in the near future. With 25,000 liters on hand they were OK for a while yet. He'd have to bring it up at dinner when everyone gathered for the meal and a discussion on the days events and planning for the next day.

His thinking kept coming back to the moving issue. Suddenly it clicked in his mind. Tokonosu Airport was an island. While a lot of it was paved over for the runways, taxiways and the ramp, there had to be several hundred acres of grassland between and around the concrete. It could do the trick if they could get the critters off of the island, secure it and get farming equipment over there. Yeah right. Nice dream but a tad impractical.

He had to admit it, he was stumped as to where they could move to in order to get the resources and land they needed to survive and expand. As it was their little community had already expanded by some 20 or so, the fisherman that they had seen on their first or second day here. They have come around the breakwater in a row boat and had brought some of their fish along with them to trade. That had been dinner last night. They didn't stay, returning instead to their motor fishing vessels where they were quite comfortable already. They did ask that the club people assist them in clearing out the fishing fleet compound, and that was planned to be done the same way as the club had been cleared with one exception. They would draw the critters out via the gates, and away from the area while the gates were closed. Any stragglers would be taken out by crossbow.

From the conversations with the fishermen, it appeared that several of their boats were able to start up engines and move. They too had no electronics anymore but the basic DC electrical systems still worked. Apparently they started their diesel with compressed air. As long as they could keep the pressure cylinder full of compressed air, they could start at will. Being all steel, the alternators deep in the belly of the ships had survived while the electronics in the deck houses had fried. So they had power, and lights. Since they could move they agreed to return to fishing every few days and trade fresh fish for rice and other staples. Wolf figured that trip to the wholesaler was going to come about sooner rather than later.

Figuring sooner rather than later, he went over to discuss that mission with Saburo and Shinji. As they talked about it, Saburo asked him why he was looking so bummed out.

"I'm worried about the sustainability of this location. Water is one thing we can't make or find in large quantities. We were lucky with those water bowsers but what do we do when that runs out again?" he replied.

"You have a point, Wolf. The two of us have been thinking along the same lines. Wally mentioned his idea of moving somewhere else a couple of days ago and it's been slowly fermenting in my head. But I'll be damned if I can figure out where we can move to." Shinji commented, scratching his head.

"I had an idea about using the Airport Island as a base. If we could clear out the critters, it is well suited as far as isolation, and arable land goes. There has to be a few hundred acres of grassland between the runways we could plow up and plant, assuming we can get plows over there somehow. But how do we clear off the critters? There must be hundreds over there. I heard something about the undersea access tunnels being full of them, all heading over to the island." Wolf said.

"Well maybe they have the place cleared out by now." Saburo replied.

What do you mean? Wolf asked.

Didn't anyone mention it to you? There were a hell of a lot of explosions and fires over there the afternoon that the EMP burst hit. We didn't notice because most of us were out on the supply mission, and you can't see the island from here because of the wharf between us and the Takagi warehouse. One of the fishermen was out that day and he saw it all. Lots of helos, and Japanese F-15s doing bomb runs at the ends of the island, away from the terminal. According to him, there were a couple of dozen helicopters flitting about over the terminal, setting down, taking off and heading out to sea. He figured that they were heading out to some task force offshore. He also got close enough that he could see hundreds of the dead being herded to the end of the runways, and then hit with napalm from the 15's." Saburo noted.

"Well, no one told me about it. Can one of you get on the radio to the JSDF crowd over at the ship yard? Maybe they know what's going on and can give us more information. Who knows. Maybe moving there might be an idea. We'd still need to get plows and other farm equipment over there and it'd be a long term project, just getting the place livable but worth it. We need to talk to someone about this." Wolf said enthusiastically.

"Wally is still our best commo guy, and he's got the radio gear we brought back from the base up and running now. Let's go ask him to get someone on the line who might know." Shinji replied as they all headed over to the clubhouse where they had installed the radio base station.

All three of them entered the clubhouse, and found Wally working the radio, talking with the JSDF RTO that he'd be in touch with for the last few days. They asked him to get an officer on line to find out what they knew about the airport, and in short order heard that there was a small task force of mixed NATO, SEATO and Japanese Maritime Defense Force ships now anchored off the Tokonosu Airport, and working at clearing the critters from the island so it could be used as an operational base. The JSDF crowd were planning on moving there using ferries and other ships once the area had been secured. Already the tunnels running from the mainland out to the island had been secured, so now it was only a matter of killing off the remaining critters and then setting up the base.

Saburo asked the officer what they could do to help, and was told to stand by. Currently it was a strictly military operation and as such they were not needed. But once the move was on, they were welcome to come over to the island if they wished, but they should understand that for all intents and purposes, they would be drafted for the duration and under military control. There was a civilian government but it was currently located in Okinawa, and this operation was under military jurisdiction only.

Currently, the manpower shortages were severe enough aboard the task force that civilians who had evaced to the various ships were all being press ganged into service to keep the ships running, service the aircraft and act as loaders and working any other task that needed little skill to be handled. The same would apply to any civvie who appeared on the island.

Apparently several of the task force ships had been in port when the emergency started and had to leave with a good 40% - 50% of their crews absent, presumed dead. As the disaster spread, dozens of civil and military helos had escaped and headed out to the task force in a scene reminiscent of the evacuation of Saigon at the end of the Vietnam conflict. They landed, people got out and the birds were unceremoniously shoved over the side. About the only helos kept were the military birds, ranging from scouts, gunships and transports.

According to the officer they spoke to, the task force been cobbled together from various leftovers as most of the NATO and SEATO ships had headed back to their home nations to assist, while these were home ported in Japan. It also included a number of commercial vessels that had joined up after hearing that the ports they were headed to had fallen to the dead. A partial list was given, these included helicopter carriers JS Kaga, and Ise, along with USS Bonhomme Richard. Two Unrep ships, JS Mashu, and Hamana, along with several frigates, and destroyers. Tagging along were a dozen or so civilian ships of various types, all in all, over 25 ships were now anchored off the airport. The land based F-15s came from one of 2 still secure airbases on Japanese soil. It was hoped that the bases would stay secure long enough to allow complete eradication of the dead on the island airport and allow for a move from the isolated airbases to the Island. As it was, the airbases were untenable once supplies ran out.

Saburo thanked the officer for the information and signed off.

"Well it looks like we might be moving. I for one don't have any problem with the draft, I'm already military. As for the others, who knows? It makes more sense to do it this way than to have to cater to a crowd of civvies with an undermanned force busy trying to establish a base." Saburo commented.

"We'll have to discuss this after dinner once they are ready to accept us. In the mean time I'd say keep it quiet. Let's wait 'til they have cleared out the place." Wolf suggested.

Nods of agreement came from the other two.

"So what do we do in the mean time?" Wolf asked them. "Continue with supply missions? I guess we have to, don't we? We don't know when we are going to make a move, nor do we know how the military is going to feed us. I expect they too will be running missions for resupply. Their supply trains can't last much more than a couple of weeks I would think. Add in a bunch of civvies to be fed and that will make their needs even greater."

"I agree, we need to keep on top of supplies, no matter where we end up. To that end I suggest we start planning our next run." Saburo said.

"Yes, we should start on that now. We will need staples in a week or two at the most and we might as well get started on that problem now. Time to locate a wholesaler or other outlet." Having said that, Shinji headed over to the table where they had put all the Takagi paperwork and the telephone directory. He sat down and started flipping pages searching for the grocery wholesaler listings. In a city of the size of Tokonosu, there were bound to be more than a few. Sure enough he found one reasonably close by. Unfortunately the nearest one was a good distance away from the water front.

This meant that they would again be driving through large masses of critters, and then they'd have to clear them out once they arrived at the warehouse. They each remembered the mission to try and get the medical supplies which had been a bust.

"Got any ideas on how to pull this one off guys?" Wolf asked.

Shinji looked at them. "I think that with the APCs we won't have any problem pushing through a crowd of the infected. Being closed vehicles, the crews will be safe even if completely surrounded. The big question is what to do when we end up stopped on site and surrounded. Movement keeps the numbers down enough not to cause us problems. The question we must answer is this: how do we clear the immediate area, so we can exit the APCs, open doors, get into the building, clear it and secure it. At Takagi we were fortunate to have water on 3 sides, and only one way in via the gate in the fence which limited the number of access points for deaders. Here we don't know what we are going to run into.

Wolf looked at the map and wondered how they would get supplies back, since the APCs were not cargo trucks. They'd have to check the tractor trailer unit that Kuma had brought the stuff back from the Takagi warehouse in, to see if it would still run. Otherwise, they'd need to get trucks that ran from somewhere. He asked the others that question.

Shinji stood up and walked out to the patio and asked Kuma to see if the tractor would start. Fingers crossed, it was an older model used for yard shunting so maybe it would still fire up. He came back to the table to make a suggestion that would take care of the transport problem, even though it meant another mission to the JSDF base. There were still EMP proof trucks to be had there.

The other two agreed with him, the military base and its equipment would once again aid them in surviving. With that in mind, they planned the mission in two parts. Part one was the run to the base, where they would distract the deaders in the same way as before, while a second group would park in the truck barn and commandeer the trucks once the deaders were out of earshot. They figured on a time table of about 2 hours to accomplish this.

The second part of the mission was a run down to the wholesaler. This part might well take the better part of the day. They would first reconn the warehouse to check out doors, ramps and what not, then they'd put the distraction plan into effect. The plan was similar to that used at the base. The main body of APCs and trucks would park in close proximity to the warehouse, with the trucks backed into the loading docks or right up tight to the overhead doors if that was what they ran into. Meanwhile a single APC would drive off a goodly distance and then start up with the car horns to attract the deaders away. Once they were far enough away to put people on the ground, teams would see to the inside of the warehouse, securing it and clearing it.

Once that was done, they could start scavenging supplies. Hopefully they would have use of at least one forklift. If not it would be pump trucks and hand bombing the boxes and sacks. As they continued to plan the mission, Kuma returned. Surprisingly, the tractor had started but as expected the the alternator was toast and the battery wasn't charging. Knowing that they had a tractor trailer, they decided to pass on the JSDF trucks and go straight to the wholesaler. All that remained was to gather the people who would go, and get on with it. The day was still young, and they figured they could accomplish the mission today.

–-Author's notes: I don't own HOTD, or any of its characters. I just get to play in their universe. All characters in this story (So far) are my own.

Reviews gratefully accepted, as long as they are constructive and non-abusive.

Unrep ship: Underway replenishment ship, carries fuel, and supplies needed by a taskforce under way.

Anyone interested in following the progress on the real life Sabre Dance is welcome to visit my builder's blog. Just search for Sabredancing. You'll find it.


	15. Chapter 15

Sabredancing with the dead update

I've been tied up for the last couple of months working on the real Sabre Dance. Not moving fast enough to keep the yacht club executive happy, I've got myself in a bit of a crack. Get her in the water by April of next year or get booted out and go someplace else. Being as the club is the best on the lake, I want to stay there.

To that end I took a 4 week unpaid leave of absence and busted my butt getting things done. While I didn't get everything done that I wanted, ( I'm not the superman I used to be ) the vital items and major welding got done. The most critical, a new rudder installation, worked out perfectly and I'm now working on installing all the steering gear... and fuel system... and exhaust system... engine controls, 120V AC electrical, a basic 12 V battery system, insulation, frames for the furniture etc. The list of things gets shorter and then grows twice as large. But I keep reminding myself that I'm having fun and getting more of a sense of accomplishment in one day on the boat than I do in months at my job. So it is worth it.

As for Sabredancing with the dead, I've got chapter 15 about half written and will be able to put more time into it after this weekend when the boats come out of the water and the club goes into hibernation for the winter.


	16. Chapter 16

Sabredancing with the dead Ch 15

Tokonosu, April 19 20xx

Day 6.

1020

They got everyone organized for the mission in short order, and by 10am they were in the APCs and heading towards the wholesaler. Their way of clearing the critters from the exit gates with horns worked as usual, especially since they had by now extended the horn network well past their own compound. Getting the gate cycled for the tractor trailer unit took more time but the critters were well away from the gate, clustered under a horn that was a good 500 yards away. Half a dozen crossbow armed residents manned the wall just in case one of them got curious or some appeared from up the road.

The APCs made good time along the shore road, and it appeared that there were fewer critters in the area now than before. Why was anyone's guess but it worked in their favor. As they turned East onto the road leading to the wholesaler, the number of critters increased, in masses both in front and behind the armored vehicles. Shinji rode the first one in line, and was riding with the upper hatch open so he could see better. He wove the convoy around any abandoned cars and they had no problems in that respect.

So far the number of critters didn't cause any problems for the vehicles and the APCs moved faster than the crowd could follow. They did have groups appearing from side streets and alleyways but most of them barely made it to the street before the convoy had passed. Those that did, disappeared under the wheels and the heavy APCs might have wobbled a bit as they rolled over them but that was all.

The run along the east bound road took about ten minutes and they soon arrived at the wholesaler. They found the place to be a long single story building, about 250 feet long and 200 wide, with a series of loading docks down one side. As they turned into the lot the last APC stopped on the road. The rest of them drove to the back of the lot, where they saw that it was blocked off by the back of another building with only a very narrow alley between it and the wholesaler. The loading ramp area where the trucks and tractor-trailer units backed into the building was fenced in with a high 12foot chain link fence with a gate at the road side. The whole ramp area wasn't much wider than 100 feet from loading dock to fence, and there were not too many critters in the area.

The circuit around the yard showed most of the loading docks to be occupied with straight trucks and a few trailer rigs, and the few docks that were open had the overhead doors closed. They noticed entry doors in 3 locations along the docks, which would be where the clearing team would make entry. But first they had to secure the lot.

Kuma brought the tractor into the yard and then backed into an open loading dock. As he did that, he noticed a pile of dead critters heaped up at two of the other open docks. He shut down and stayed put in the cab. Shinji now had all the vehicles in the yard shut down while that one APC on the street remained running. Once the others were in silent mode, that APC started the "music" at the gate, revving the engine, and calling over the onboard loud speaker. This drew the roaming critters out of the yard, and on down the road away from the gate. As they came out, the APC slowly backed up, drawing them down the street. When as many of the critters as possible had been drawn from the lot, Shinji signaled the APC and it shut down and went quiet. The crew sat back to wait for further instructions, lighting up smokes and sipping some water.

The noise from the road side APC succeeded in drawing out just about all of the critters in the lot, and once they had stumbled well clear of the yard, another crew got out of their APC, and closed the gate. Being electrically driven, they had to break the roller chain that moved it but they had come with the proper tools and it took no time at all.

So far, so good. The dismount teams now got up on top of their vehicles and picked off the few remaining critters with crossbows. In short order the yard was critter free. Swapping their crossbows for rifles, they now covered an other rifle equipped entry team as they moved ahead to the first entry door. Taking their time they opened the door quietly and entered one by one. The next entry team followed behind to give cover and help clearing the building.

Wolf was part of the second entry team, carrying his SKS rifle. Just as he was about to enter the warehouse, he heard the booming of shots coming from inside. Taking a dive through the door, he ended up behind a stack of pallets. Crouching down, he cautiously surveyed the area before him. He saw one man lying face down in a pool of blood, about 30 feet from the entry door, in the open space between the docks and the first row of shelving units. Another lay bleeding from a wound to the arm just past him on the left, near another stack of pallets. The others from the team were hunkered down behind pallet stacks and skids full of boxes. While the piles of pallets provided some protection from the incoming fire, the skids full of food and other groceries did next to nothing. Great for concealment but not worth a damn when it came to bullet proof cover. One of the guys over to his left pulled on a gas mask, and waited 'til the others (those who saw him) did the same, then popped a smoke grenade and tossed it towards the shelving units. As it billowed two men moved to different positions, trying to find better cover, while the remaining two fired at the shelving to keep the oppositions' heads down.

Having made sure the mask he had hastily put on was fitting right, Wolf moved to look around the side of the stack. He looked closely to see if he could find where the shots were coming from but saw nothing at first. All that was visible were stacks of boxes, and pallets with spaces of varying size between them. He looked to his left, and saw about 20 feet of open space before the next stack of boxes. No good for movement. To his right, the odds were better, as there were several large stacks of pallets in an area between the entry door and the first loading door. They were pushed up nearly to the wall but a concrete barrier left a walkway between them and the wall.

Here was a way to get around and perhaps flank the people who were doing the shooting. Reaching down to his webbing, he pulled a smoke grenade free, pulled the pin and let the spoon fly. Tossing it towards the shelving in front of him, he watched it roll under the row of shelves and into the first isle behind them. As it started to spew large volumes of smoke, he quickly ran to the first pile of pallets, and worked his way to the other side of the stacks. Here he peeked around, but saw no one. He did hear a lot of ragged coughing, so the smoke was working. By this time the smoke had covered a fairly large area, and the fire from his own people was still keeping heads down, so he ran across the open area and hunkered down at the end of the first row of shelves. Still seeing no one, he moved again, working his way farther into the building, row by row.

After crossing 4 rows of shelving he started working his way back to the right, keeping a close eye out for the people who were shooting at them. Finally, he spotted a couple of men hunkered down behind boxes, taking pot shots towards the loading area with a shotgun and an assault rifle. They didn't appear to be wearing any military gear, or helmets, so he figured they had scavenged the firearms. He slowly and quietly moved to a position with good cover, and crouched with his SKS lined up on top of a pile of pallets.

Shit, now what should he do? His Japanese was still pretty poor, certainly not good enough to tell these two to drop their weapons and surrender. He didn't want to just murder the guys in cold blood, but how to get them to lay down the guns? Finally, they both started to creep back away from the row they were hiding behind, and moved diagonally away from the docks and him. He followed them at a distance and watched as they both disappeared into an office near the front of the building. Constantly looking around as he went, he noted no other people. He decided to wait, until Shinji or Saburo showed up and hunkered down behind a skid full of boxes.

It didn't take long before the JSDF Sergeant came up on his six, and hunkered down beside him. "What do you have?"

"There are two guys in that office over there. One had a shotgun, the other an assault rifle. Could be they are short of ammo or getting more inside. I also heard a woman's voice and maybe some kids." Wolf replied, pointing to the office door just ahead.

"Well, I don't want to assault the place and kill anyone especially if there are some kids in there. I won't do that unless we have to. They are most likely just scared to death. I'll try to talk them into coming out, and maybe take them back with us. If not, then perhaps we can make a deal to trade for food and supplies. Our fishermen friends keep us well supplied, and with no power fresh food is becoming scarce. What do you think?" Shinji said.

"Shinji, we lost a man coming through the door. Maybe it was an accident, caused by them shooting before they knew who we were, but they could have talked to us just as well. Maybe we should just box them in, collect our stuff and leave?" Wolf told the Sargeant. Then he thought a bit and said "But then we'd have to deal with them again if we returned. Maybe you are right. It wouldn't hurt to try to speak to them."

By this time, a couple more of the dismount team members had arrived and Shinji waved them into positions on either side of the office door. In the back ground they could hear the sound of the loading door opening up, and pallets being moved onto the trailer with pump trucks. That crew would deal with the supplies while Shinji, and his group handled the people in the office.

"Ok, Wolf, I'm going to crawl around to the front of the office, just off to one side of the door. You cover me, and I'll try to talk to them." With that said, the sergeant got up and ran in a crouch to the wall of the office and dropped down. Speaking loudly, he identified himself as a member of the JSDF, and asked that someone speak with him. Muffled voices could be heard inside the office as someone opened the door slightly. Since his Japanese was still pretty bad, Wolf didn't make out much of what the two parties were saying to each other but after some back and forth, the shotgun and the assault rifle were slid out of the door and away from the office. Shinji spoke with them for a minute or two more and the door opened further and two men walked out, expressions of fear on their faces. One was apparently an office worker, judging from the grungy suit he was wearing. The second appeared to be a student, about 18 or so. They came out with their hands up over their heads, and after Shinji stood up and showed them his military ID, and assured them that they were not going to be gunned down, the older fellow turned back to the door and told the others to come out. Out came two women and a young child. From the way they now stood with the men, it was pretty obvious that this was the mans' wife and the students' girlfriend or sister. The young child clutched at the woman's leg and hid partially behind her.

By this time Saburo had come up to see what was going on. Seeing the child so obviously afraid, the fighter pilot reached into his pocket and pulled out a box of Pocky.

Getting the OK from the child's mother, he crouched down and offered a stick of the chocolate cookie to the kid. After a moments' hesitation and a reassuring word from mother, the kid stepped forward and took the cookie, very politely saying thank you to the pilot. As the family became more at ease, both Saburo and Shinji questioned them as to their story, how they got here and why they shot the men trying to enter the warehouse. As it turned out, they had started out hiding in their house not too far away but had to leave when the food ran out. Thinking of the Wholesaler a short way away, they had very carefully made their way to the warehouse, using much the same stealth methods that Wolf and Kat had put into practice. While marooned inside their home they had observed the behavior of the critters, noticing what made them move and how to draw them away using items tossed out of an upper window. Finally running out of food and water, they took the risk of getting to the warehouse. The trip had taken them the better part of a day.

Once they had made it to the warehouse they had closed off all the entry points, and killed off the critters that were still inside the building. Mom, the girlfriend, and the child had stayed in the office while the father and son had done for the critters, using clubs taken from torn down pallets. These they tossed out of the loading doors. A day or so after they had entered the warehouse, a group of punks hit the place, and terrorized the family with knives and clubs. Saying they'd be back to have a go at the mother and the girlfriend, the son had gone back out to where they'd passed an over run JSDF position, and picked up the shotgun and the assault rifle and whatever ammunition he could find which wasn't much.

The punks had come back, and after several of their numbers had been blown away, (the man was a former JSDF trooper) left for safer turf. Hearing the doors open and seeing the dismount team entering with rifles, they'd panicked and fired.

Saburo and Shinji stepped away, with Wolf in tow and discussed options.

Turning back to the family, "Sir, do you want to come with us? We have a secure location with about a hundred survivors. The accommodations are rather unique but so far it is working out well for us." Saburo asked them.

"Unique how?" the woman asked.

"Well, we all live on boats for a start. But we have a communal kitchen, running toilets, stocks of clothing for the summer to come, and we all work together to keep it running. We have critter proof transport, and can scavenge supplies to keep ourselves going. We've also been in contact regularly with the government forces securing the shipyard area. We may move there soon" replied Shinji with a grin.

At the mention of boats, the kid's eyes lit up and he started to pull on mom's skirt. Seems he wanted to go see the boats. Both of the men asked a few more questions, and then decided to accept.

Wolf helped them collect their belongings, few though they were, and then they all walked to the loading docks. Things there were well in hand, and the two men joined in the collection and loading of supplies. In an hour the tractor trailer was full to the doors with food stuffs, sanitary items, cleaning supplies, and other items that would improve the life of the "boat people". Checking the outside area carefully, the teams exited the building, secured the doors with a chain and lock, and climbed aboard the APCs. The child, whose name was Kirito, was in heaven, when Shinji lifted him up in the commanders hatch and let him see out as they moved in column back to the club compound.


	17. Chapter 17

Sabredancing with the dead Ch 17

Tokonosu, April 19 20xx

Day 6.

1345

The trouble started almost immediately on their return to the compound. The body of the dead man had been recovered and brought back with them. Wolf wasn't sure why they did it this time, as they had left Dave Cross back at the JSDF base when he'd been killed by the critter. No matter the reason, the man who died had had a wife who lost it and started screaming as soon as she saw her husband's body. Several people gathered around her, trying to comfort her, including Fujiko and Kat. They slowly led the poor woman into the clubhouse, wailing for her husband.

Yamato tore into the command group as soon as he saw the body being unloaded from the APC. Blaming all of them once again for losing a life unnecessarily by going out of the compound, instead of waiting on the "Government" to take control and rescue them. (The fact that they had been short of water and food, and needed this and other materials to survive completely eluded him, as did the fact that the Government forces were pinned down just as badly as they were). Saburo and Wolf basically ignored him while Shinji muttered under his breath, clenching and unclenching his fists in an effort not to beat the living snot out of the idiot.

The family they had brought back with them stood off to one side while the father hung his head in shame for killing the woman's husband. Kirito clung once again to his mother, fearful of the anger being expressed towards them. As word spread of the events which occurred, several more people sent them evil looks, muttering amongst themselves. Others, while understanding the family's fear of being further attacked by the punks, could not hold them responsible. They accepted that it was a tragic accident. Sometimes, shit happens.

Several of them went up to the family to show them that they did not hold the father responsible, and felt no ill will towards the newcomers. As the animosity towards the family seemed to escalate (in part because of that asshat Yamatos' bitching) those people then went to confront the ones loudly seeking to pin the blame on Mr. Sakurazaki and his son. They argued that it was self-defense, given the previous incidents with the punk group, and a stated threat to return. To be certain the punks might not have come back, given the losses they took on their second visit to the warehouse. But who could say that they couldn't find arms and try again? It was after all a valuable location with food and shelter for many.

As the argument continued back and forth between the two groups, Saburo sought out and quietly spoke to another member of the original group, whom he had discovered to be a lawyer in conversation during meal times. Civil lawyer to be sure but a lawyer none the less. After a hurried discussion, he climbed up on a table and hollered for everyone to shut up and be quiet. Once that was accomplished, he started to speak.

"Listen up people. I've just had a conversation with Ms. Sarazawa. She happens to be a practicing lawyer and has expressed complete confidence that, given the circumstances we are living under, a court would find this to be a sad case of death by misadventure and self-defense on the part of Mr. Sakurazaki. As of right now, this argument and any further intimidation of Mr. Sakurazaki's family will come to a complete halt. Do I make myself clear? We don't have time for this crap. They are survivors, just as we are." He told them.

One of the people at the back of the group, who Wolf had not yet met, spoke up and demanded proof that the lady was indeed a lawyer and that this wasn't just the pilots' way of defusing the situation. At this point, the young lady in question (looking pretty pissed) climbed up on the table with Saburo and spoke.

"How would you like to take a stroll a few blocks over and a dozen or so up to the core of Tokonosu and see for yourself? My office is there if you have the balls to go and see. Better still, how about I beat you over the head with my briefcase full of legal documents which I managed to keep my hands on while running for my life? You certainly have a lot of gall accusing me of being a liar." She said as she looked each of them up and down. "On second thought, maybe I should just nail my business card to your forehead. That might convince you." She then put her hands on her hips and glared at everyone, daring them to say one more word. No one did.

The Air Force Captain then told them all to get moving and help unload the supplies and get them into the club house. Some of the things might end up being put into one of the boat storage sheds if they needed more space and would require that much more work. It was time to get things done, so stop bitching and let's get to it.

While he was doing that, Wolf walked over to Eriko and asked her to dig a grave in the good ground but away from where they'd washed the critter slime into the pit. She suggested that he should go to see what the widow would like done with the body. "We have different customs here with regard to arrangements such as these, Wolf San. I wouldn't want to waste the fuel digging a pit we won't need."

"Damn, I should have thought of that before I asked you. Thank you for telling me that. I'll go see the woman and ask." He replied as he turned towards the clubhouse. He met Kat coming out of the front door, and stopped.

"How is she doing?" He asked.

"She just lost her husband in the middle of a friggin' zombie apocalypse and now she's all alone with a bunch of strangers. How do you THINK she is doing? Fujiko just put a couple of glasses of whiskey down her throat, and she's not screaming anymore. She's going to take the poor lady down to their boat, and keep watch over her for the time being. Elaine is checking through our medical supplies to see if we scavenged any tranquilizers but other than that, we can't do a damned thing for her!' She said, glaring at him.

"Jesus, why are you mad at me?" He asked, already knowing the answer to that one.

"Because it could have been you, Wolf!" Kat heatedly replied as she stepped towards him and started to beat him on the chest with her fists. He reached out and pulled her towards himself and wrapped his arms around her as she burst into tears. She buried her face in his neck. "You could have been killed too, and I'd be the one losing it right now!"

Wolf just held her. There wasn't much he could say to make this any better. This was just the screwed up mess they had to deal with, no matter how hard it was. He slowly rubbed up and down her back, whispering to her that it would be OK, that they'd be OK. Eventually she stopped sniffling, and stepped back from him.

"Goddamit Wolf, every time you guys go out there, my guts twist up thinking this may be the trip you don't come back from." She told him quietly and paused.

"I only just got you back into my life. I don't' want to lose you now!" She whispered.

He stepped forward and again took her in his arms. "Kat, I don't want to lose you either, but what else can we do? We have to keep going out to gather supplies or we just won't make it. You know we all agreed at that first meeting that it would be everyone pitching in, no one would be sitting on their butts doing nothing. Even that dipshit Yamato has turned to, even if he does bitch a blue streak."

"Why do you have to go out there with them? You're a lot older than most of them and not even trained for it. Let Saburo and Shinji take the younger guys with them. They have the military experience and so do some of the others. You don't." She pleaded with him.

"Yeah, you are right Kat. I don't have any military experience but you know how much I've read and studied all things military or survival related. Hell, Neil and I were Doomers for years and used to game out scenarios like this. All of that old knowledge is surfacing now from the dusty corridors of my mind. I might shit my pants in a firefight but I don't panic very easily, and I think I can walk the walk if I have to. Our survival now depends on it." He spoke quietly while stroking her hair.

"But knowing you are here safe and waiting, makes it easier for me. I don't have to worry about you if you are here behind these walls helping to run things. Besides, your organizational skills are better than mine by a long shot. They always were. So you run this show, and I'll go out on the pointy end to keep us in groceries. I promise I'll be as careful as I can. But if we don't survive in this hell hole, it sure won't be for a lack of tryin'." Wolf told her quietly.

Kat clung to him for a few moments more, not saying anything. Finally, she let him go and stepped back. "I hate it when you go all logical on me. I can't fight that with emotions. You are right, we can't do other than what we're doing now. And that isn't going to change for the foreseeable future. But it still scares me to see you head out that gate every time, and it always will but I'll just have to learn to live with that" She wiped her eyes. "Now I'm going back inside to see how the widow is doing and get an inventory going. The truck is almost unloaded, and I need to see what you all brought back this time."

"Alright Kat, I'm going to get with Mr Sakurazaki and his family and see about getting them settled aboard that cruiser in slip 27." He pointed at a large 45 foot long white cabin cruiser with a flying bridge. It was the biggest in the club. "The work crew got the critters out of that one yesterday, and the boat is plenty big enough for 4 adults and a kid." He paused for a bit. "Oh and could you please ask Mrs. Ukita what she would like to do with Tadaharu's body. You know, any special arrangements to be taken care of? I'm no good at that sort of stuff.

"Either I or Fujiko will speak to her about that in a while." She told him as she hugged him once more. Stepping back after the embrace, he turned back to where the crew was dealing with the unloading of the transport. Mr Sakurazaki and his son had both joined in the effort after a few moments of standing there alone after Ms Sarazawa had finished ripping a strip off of the crowd. Mrs Sakurazaki, Fuki Matsuda and Kirito were also in good hands at the moment as several of the other women had come over to show them around and make them feel welcome. Kirito appeared much more relaxed as he no longer hid behind his mother or Fuki.

When he got to the back end of the trailer, he saw that the unloading was just about completed and people were breaking off to head for other chores. He waved Shinji over and both of the Sakurazakis. When they had gathered, he asked Shinji to tell them to follow him to where they would be living. Shinji translated that and answered some questions as the 4 of them walked along the breakwater to slip 27.

Wanting to clear out the last of the critters, and given the possibility of more people coming into the compound, Saburo had had work parties clear all the boats in the slips of any critters that were still aboard, and mop up the blood if any. He himself had taken down most of the critters left, hacking their heads off with the katana Wolf had given him. The cleaned up boats now would serve as readymade living quarters for any people who joined their little community. The work parties had also gone over the various boats as they cleaned them up to see if any would run, and several of them would fire up their diesel engines. These would come in handy when it came time to join up with the other group at the ship yards.

The two men were unsure of what was happening as Shinji explained to them that this was their new home. At first they were incredulous, but as he climbed up on deck and waved them aboard, they looked at each other, shook their heads and climbed aboard, with Wolf behind them. Giving them the nickel tour, Wolf explained (with Shinji translating as needed) that there was enough room for all of them, and with 2 cabins and a large living area, they could make whatever arrangements they needed to get back to a semblance of living. He pointed out the various cabinets with bed linens, closets with some clothes and the galley with everything they needed to cook aboard if they needed to, but did remind them that the community used a dining hall approach for meals.

Mr Sakurazaki just about fell over himself thanking the two men, bowing constantly, his son also thanking them profusely. That done with, Wolf asked them in halting Japanese to follow him. Stepping back onto the dock he led them to the club house and showed them around. One of the things they had worked out was a bulletin board arrangement with various tasks that needed doing. This was pointed out as a method of dividing up the work. Stepping past the board, they walked down a hall in the back to the club offices, and arrived at a desk with Yamato seated behind it, various note books arranged on the table before him. Shinji introduced the formally newcomers, and he proceeded to ask them questions about skills and education that they had, incorporating that into a master listing. He also asked the two men if they could bring by the wife and girlfriend so he could find out what skills they might have.

Here even Wolf had to shake his head in amazement. This set up was entirely Yamato's doing. As annoying as he was, the guy had a good head for bureaucracy. It had taken him a couple of days of doing grunt work before he decided to go with the flow, and to do what he was trained to do, which was manage things. That decided, he sat down a couple of nights after the great critter munch, and started putting together an organizational table, made up lists of skills they needed, and got started on questioning everyone in the compound as to their abilities. He questioned both Shinji and Saburo as to what they figured they needed to keep going and managed to put together a working community. He didn't ask Wolf a damn thing, but just about everyone else contributed to the skills listing and list of tasks that needed doing to keep the community afloat. He'd even spoken nicely to Kat about the kitchen and food preparations, wanting to know what she needed to make it work better.

Wolf and Shinji left the two of them talking with Yamato, and headed back out to the compound. The sun was about an hour from setting, and dinner would be announced in a few minutes. They just had enough time to check out the materials being stored in the boat shed, and then wash up for dinner.

Dinner was once again a somber occasion. Tadaharu Ukita had been well liked by the small community, and his loss was greatly felt by all. His widow was out on their boat asleep, being watched over by Elaine and Fujiko by turns. The Sakurazaki family sat near Wolf and Wally' table, still looking a little tense but it appeared that Saburo and Ms Sarazawa had pretty much put an end to any blame the others might still feel toward them. Once again, after the meal Shinji looked around the room, and hoisted his drink. He spoke in Japanese and then repeated it in English. This time Wolf understood it right off.

"Fuzai no nakama...Absent Companions."


	18. Chapter 18

Sabredancing with the dead Ch 18

Tokonosu, April 19 20xx

Day 7.

1435

One week had now passed since the dead started walking. After overcoming their initial terror, the people in the compound had settled down. (As much as could be expected in such an insane situation.) The community now numbered over 100 and everyone had pulled together well to keep it running. They had so far run five missions outside the compound, and were in good shape for a couple of weeks as far as food and water went. Sadly though, they had lost two of their people.

As they had taken to doing, the command group were sitting together at a table under the awning. They were discussing the latest news from the RTO in the JSDF enclave at the shipyards. Wally was in daily touch with them and gave the group updates every day after the noon meal.

"According to Kenji, they finally cleared out Tokonosu airport, and it is now free of deaders." He reported.

"Who is Kenji? The RTO?" Saburo asked him.

"Nah, Kenji is Lieutenant Kenji Todamatsu, one of the JSDF commanders in charge of coordinating the eventual move over to the island. I talk to him at least once a day, and he keeps me up to date. According to him, the Task force is still anchored off the island but they are offloading all supplies and materials from the various ships to the cargo facilities on the airport perimeter. It's a bitch of a job because of the EMP effects, but they are managing. Once that is done, they plan on sending some of those ships over to the yard to take about half of the personnel over to the island and get it organized and running." Wally informed them.

"So they plan on maintaining the ship yard as a secure beach head." Wolf thought out loud. "That makes sense; they'll still need a secure place to transship materials that they scavenge from the city. Even with all the supplies they have aboard ships now, they'll be constantly running missions just like we are. It's going to be a damn hard job feeding all the people who end up there."

"Yes, we keep coming back to the food problem. Somehow, we have to start farming. The city doesn't have infinite resources to feed us all. The whole place ran on the Just in Time concept and that has come to a screeching halt. At some point we will start running out." Saburo noted.

He paused to think for a moment before continuing. "So let's say we decide to start farming for food? Just how are we going to go about doing that? Any ideas?"

Wally spoke up. "Well, we know that there isn't much farm land anywhere near this city that we can secure and use. Most of the best farmland is on the other side of Japan on the Kanto Plain. However, we do have the island that was built for the airport and that is a good-sized chunk of land. That's gotta be at least 10 square kilometers. Less all the ramps and such, figure it to be seven, maybe eight square klicks. The island is now secure, so what we need to do is procure equipment, seeds and fertilizer and get it over there. What do you think?"

"Well for one thing it's gonna be a cast iron bitch to come up with equipment that works, not to mention getting it from where ever it is to here and then over to the island. We'd have to fight our way to wherever the stuff is, without any idea of where to find it in the first place. We'd need a hell of a lot of manpower to do that." Wolf noted with a grimace. He thought about it for a moment and continued. "Actually getting it over to the Island shouldn't be a problem. They had to get the cargo from the mainland to the island and back didn't they? Isn't there a rail and road link to the island?"

"Yes, there is, but it was cut off to try and keep the dead from the island. Unfortunately, they got on somehow anyway. The bridge is completely blocked and the landside end is over run with the dead. I know this from messages my commander received before we were overrun ourselves." Shinji told them.

He had been sitting quietly listening to the discussion. That was his first comment for the day. Now he spoke and stated a simple fact. "First thing we need is research on what is available in the local area, and Japan in general, and where it is. In addition, I don't know anything about farming, and I doubt anyone here does. Right?"

They all nodded.

"So we need more information on that too."

Wolf and the others agreed with him on that.

Shinji continued. "It's a great idea, one to be looked at in the future but for now it is impractical. We don't have any reconnaissance capabilities and we'd be walking blind into anything and everything, assuming we had someplace to go to get the equipment and a way to get it back. Perhaps a trip to the city library might give us some ideas of what we are facing in trying to set up a farming area but even that is a low priority mission from where I stand. We need to keep on top of the food and water situation, and we have limited ability to do that even with the APCs."

"Shinji, you're right. At the moment we have not got the wherewithal to attempt such a complex feat, and we may never get that far. I agree that if we are planning a mission that passes near the main library, we can perhaps stop off and do some research." Saburo said, acknowledging the sergeant's wisdom.

"Clearing out and holding something like a library may be a hard job. Dangerous. I wonder if we can convince anyone to volunteer for that one. As Shinji says, it's not a critical mission. Yamato for instance will have a conniption fit if we even suggest it." Wolf told them.

"Yes, perhaps you are right. No one is thinking long term right now, being too busy just worrying about surviving a day at a time. Maybe when we move over the Island things will be different. I suppose we will have to shelve the idea for now. Agreed?" Saburo asked them.

"Yeah."

"Yes, for now."

"Right."

"OK, so what do we need to do next?" Shinji asked them. "Have Kat or Fujiko said anything about what they might need? How are we making out for water?"

Wolf had spoken to Kat that morning. "Kat figures they are using about 450-500 liters a day for cooking, dish washing, and minimal personal hygiene like a sponge bath. So as of tonight we will be down by a thousand liters. Figure we get 10 days per truck, which gives us 40 days before we need to get more. I'm thinking on keeping 10000 liters in reserve for emergency use… Oh and our usage will increase as the temperature picks up. I know I can go through 3-4 liters in 3 hours on a warm day if I'm doing any sort of physical work. What do you think?" He asked them.

"Sound planning Wolf, it's always good to plan for problems before they hit." Wally told him. "Now, what are we going to do for clean fresh water?"

Wolf asked them if they knew of any sporting goods, camping or surplus outlets in town.

"Why do you ask Wolf?" Shinji queried.

"Well I have a couple of filters on board that are porous stone, which will filter up to 50,000 gallons of water. I was hoping we could find some more? If not, then perhaps we can dig up some chlorine to disinfect river water after we run it through a sand filter." He replied.

" _Why in hell would you have filters like that on board?"_ Wally wondered. He asked Wolf the same.

"Hell Wally, I was a Doomer for years and always had stuff like this around to survive the end of the world. Doesn't every one?" Wolf said with a grin and a wink. "I never figured on having to survive a zombie apocalypse but what the hell, the principles are the same."

Wolf paused to take a sip of his daily coffee ration and continued. "When I was young, my buddy Neil and I ran a small group of survivalists. "Doomers" is what the press called us. We used to get together and practice field craft, shooting, field medicine and anything else that would help us survive if they ever decided to have a nice little nuclear war. We used to run field exercises summer and winter, evacing out of our area in older cars that were EMP proof and camping for a week in the bush. We did it for about 6 or 7 years, 'til various members got married or moved away. Our plan was to head up to Hudson's Bay and settle in an old abandoned trading post."

He took another sip and went on. "Anyway, when I decided to head out into the great wide world on Sabre Dance, I set her up to accomplish much the same thing. I have gear aboard to set up camp where ever I go and survive."

No wonder Wolf is handling this disaster so much better than most of the others were, Saburo thought to himself. Shinji was thinking much the same thing and their respect for Wolf took another step upwards.

"Anyway, if we can find the right store we might find some more filters like these or similar. Using them isn't much of a big deal; we only need a good length of PVC pipe, some glue and an end cap." Wolf finished off.

"Very well, something to add to our search." Saburo said as he wrote it down in his notebook.

"So what do we have to do today?" Wolf asked the group.

"Clear out the compound next door for the fishermen, and then string out some more of the cable and set up horns farther along the wall for a start. We could use a few more batteries too." Saburo mentioned.

Wolf put forth the idea that had been stirring in his mind. "I was thinking of taking a run over to the Takagi Warehouse. I'd like to check out the two ships that are alongside. One of them was over run but the other had the gangway up and we didn't see any signs of critters. I'm wondering if there are people aboard, and also wondering if that ship might take care of some of our water problems."

"How so?" Shinji asked him.

"Ocean going ships have distillation units on board to provide fresh water for the crew. If they have fuel, they can run the unit for a long time. Plus, depending on what is aboard and if there is still a crew, we could use the ship and it's cargo when or if we move to the Island airport." Wolf replied.

Saburo thought about it for a moment before speaking. "Very well, we will put together two working groups. One will clear the next compound and get the noisemaker net extended. Shinji, you can lead that one. Park an APC outside the farthest gaten of their compound, and start the music. One crew will watch from our dividing wall to see that the critters all move out. Once they are out, have the APC drag them away, while the inside crew hops the wall and closes the gate or gates. Once that is done stringing the extended noise maker circuits will be simple."

Shinji nodded at the assignment and left to organize his group. Saburo then looked at Wolf. "You and I will take a group and one APC over to Takagi and reconnoiter. I suspect the hardest part will be to get up on the ship if we can't make contact with any one aboard. We will need ladders or ropes if the hull is too high. Any way we won't know until we go and have a look. Let us go round up a few people to give us a hand."

With that, the two of them headed over to the club where several people were standing around, waiting for an assignment. They picked up six more people, armed them and got ready to go out and climb aboard one of the APCs. Tamichi Hara got the "music"

going on the wall, with the horn set farthest away. 10 minutes later, he gave the two groups the OK to open the gate, and they moved out and boarded the APCs while others closed the gate behind them. A few minutes later, Wolf and Saburo were on their way over to the Takagi Warehouse. The APC behind them stopped near the far end of the fisherman's compound, and started the music.

On arrival at the Takagi warehouse they found the gates still closed, as they had left them. The horde of critters following them was far enough back that one of the dismounts had time to get the gate open and then close it after the APC went through without any problem. He remounted and the APC headed down the length of the dock towards the first ship. This one had the gangway down, but unlike before, there didn't appear to be anyone or anything on deck. Saburo laid on the horn for a minute or two and sure enough a couple of critters staggered to the rail. Using one of the crossbows, they were taken out, and the dismount team made its way up the gangway and onto the deck. Here they found several pools of blood but no further critters. They made their way to the bridge, and found another deader there. It was killed in short order and the way to the Captain's cabin was clear.

Once they made it to the Captain's cabin, they found the manifests for the cargo on board. These were collected and the dismount team left the ship. Before they did, they raised the gangway a few feet off the pier. Saburo backed the APC into position and the men got off the gangway by jumping down onto it's back. This ship was now secure from any more boarders of the dead variety. If the manifests showed anything of value aboard, the ship would still have to be cleared cabin by cabin, space by space to make sure there were no more critters aboard. However, that could wait for the time being.

With his dismount team aboard again, Saburo drove round the end of the warehouse and up the other side to the second ship, which had its gangway up. Here again he laid on the horn for a few minutes. Sure enough, a few faces appeared to look down at them.

Saburo and Wolf climbed up onto the back of the APC and Saburo started to speak to them. After a few minutes of conversation, it was apparent that the ship's crew was indeed safe, had provisions to last a while and would be happy to become a part of Saburo's group. A couple of the crewmen then lowered the gangway and came down to meet face to face. The ship's Captain also came down, and he and Saburo spoke at length of the situation. An invitation to join the club people for dinner was extended and accepted. Capt. Nishizawa told them that he and his people would drop a motor launch into the water from the ship and come around the breakwater and meet them for dinner at 7pm. He grinned at them and hinted at bringing along some treats.

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Author's notes: I don't own HOTD, or any of its characters. I just get to play in their universe. All characters in this story (So far) are my own.

Reviews gratefully accepted, as long as they are constructive and non-abusive.


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